A report on Radstock’s new Healthy Living Centre, which will incorporate the town’s Doctor’s Surgery, Library, Children’s Centre and a training kitchen run by Big Local, has revealed that the Council will be selling the current Library and Children’s Centre buildings, with resulting funds ring-fenced for the new project.

Cabinet members are recommended to approve a gross budget of £1.77 million for its part of the project (Library and Children’s Centre), subject to the NHS funding being confirmed. The report states that co-location of services is a requirement of the funding, with the building needing to be complete by early 2019.

The B&NES report notes that the Library and Children’s Centre would then relocate in spring 2019, with the existing sites for sale ‘on the open market’. Hope House Surgery will be responsible for the construction and any associated risks; with the Council selling the land at Waterloo Road and a share of the new facility leased back to the Council at a peppercorn rent.

The total cost of the Waterloo Road surgery project is estimated at around £5.4 million, with the Council’s Development Management Committee approving the application last September. Hope House Surgery says its current building is no longer fit for purpose, and the Council also sees the move of the Library and Children’s Centre as a way to protect and modernise local services for the future.

The new centre will also be focusing on health inequalities in the Somer Valley, with the idea of the Community Kitchen to inspire patients to take control of their own health and wellbeing. The report says that the area has some of the highest rates of childhood obesity, mental health issues and safeguarding and the lowest breastfeeding rates, and that Virgin Care will be delivering community health and care services alongside local doctors and the Children’s Centre.

Plans included in the Council report show that on the first floor, the Library will have 97.5m² of space, Children’s Services 167.5m², Big Local Kitchen 62m² and the Surgery 207m².