PROMOTING HEALTH AND WELLBEING IN WEST CALDER AND POLBETH
INTRODUCTION
I am a surveyor at West Lothian Council, in the internal estates management service. The team focuses on the management of the council’s non-operational property portfolio and delivers a professional surveying service to internal and external customers. This project is typical of our day-to-day workload except we seldom have the opportunity to take stock and look at the wider context. Whilst this project was not exceptional the number of stakeholders involved and the extended timescale, 5 years from beginning to end, complicated it.
The purpose of this paper is to outline the contribution a professional surveyor can make to a complex partnership project.
Objective and background
The objective of this project was to promote health and wellbeing in West Calder and Polbeth. West Lothian Council is a unitary authority created in the 1996 Local Government Reorganisation. It is located to the eastern end of the central belt between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The population is about 170,000. It is it the fastest growing area in Scotland. The population is centred on five historic burghs, a number of villages and a 1970s new town, Livingston.
One of the aims of the council’s Community and Corporate Plan is to work with other public sector partners to improve the health and reduce inequalities between the people of West Lothian. This is to be measured by people living longer and healthier lives and by reducing the gap between the most and least healthy.
This project’s focus was on the villages of West Calder and Polbeth. These are located 3 miles to the southwest of Livingston and have a joint population of about 6,000. The villages’ historic growth came from oil shale extraction but they are now dormitory settlements feeding larger employment areas.
The original health facilities were located close to the centre of West Calder and comprised a separate GP Surgery that was too small and Clinic listed as obsolete for sometime. So NHS Lothian engaged General Practice Investment Corporation Ltd (GPI) to provide the new medical centre with the objective of providing a new and dramatically improved health facility for West Calder in a state of the art building to include
● 12 doctors’ surgeries and ● 7 consulting and treatment rooms and
● Clinics and offices for various uses such as physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, health education, and administration
This has enabled the participating GPs to expand their catchment areas.
The site
After an extensive search, a site of 4.42 acres at Burngrange, already owned by the council, was identified as the most suitable location for the new development. The site is located next to the main road making it easily accessible, but unfortunately it was leased to West Calder United Football Club. This increased the number of external parties involved and the outcomes to be achieved. The Council’s main property role was to make the site available for sale to GPI, to facilitate the successful delivery of this multi-faceted project.
Added benefits
The additional benefits for the communities of West Calder and Polbeth were the creation of improved sports facilities, a children’s play area at Polbeth and new social housing at Burngrange.
Partnership working
The facilities will contribute to the improvement of the health and well being of both communities and help the Council to meet other corporate objectives include Partnership Working with both internal and external partners.
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Tracey J W Thomson
ASSET - Liverpool-10
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