Prime Minister told of urgent need for health centre in Peterborough's during face-to-face meeting with city MP Paul Bristow

Peterborough MP Paul Bristow has used a face-to-face meeting with the Prime Minister to call for urgent action to build a diagnostics centre in the city.

Mr Bristow got a rare chance to make his case directly to the PM when he was invited to No 10 Downing Street for the meeting with Rishi Sunak yesterday morning.

He said: “It was a chance to put some of the priorities of the constituency to the Prime Minister and to tell him what needs to happen.”

Top of his list of priorities was the need for a new health diagnostics centre, education and concerns about the use of the Great Northern Hotel for asylum seekers.

Mr Bristow said: “I told him that the proposed Community Diagnostics Centre for Peterborough needs to be built as quickly as we possibly can.

“It is a hugely exciting project for Peterborough and will offer an alternative facility for residents to Accident & Emergency and GPs.

"But I don’t want people sitting around thinking about it – we need to get on and build it.”

The centre has been provisionally earmarked for UNEX House on Bourges Boulevard, near Asda at Rivergate but other options are being considered.

Once completed it will be capable of delivering 67,000 scans a year, such as CT scans, ultrasound scans, X-rays and blood tests, and could be open in 2024.

Mr Bristow said he also outlined to Mr Sunak the importance of continued investment in Peterborough’s new university, which the Prime Minister visited late in 2021 when he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Then Mr Sunak told the Peterborough Telegraph: “The university has been designed to integrate research with business.

“This is something we really need to do better in this country. Peterborough could be at the forefront of this - it is doing all the right things.”

Mr Bristow also voiced his concerns about the use of the Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough to house asylum seekers.

He said: “The Prime Minister accepted the hotel is not the best place for asylum seekers.

“The Government is working on plans to stop asylum seekers coming to the UK in small boats.”