THE public has a right to know what is going on behind closed doors between the St Clements GP Practice and the city council.

Planning approval was given several years ago for a new surgery on the car park at the corner of Upper Brook Street and Friarsgate. The practice is currently in a 1960s building on Tanner Street that has seen better days.

Yet somehow the two sides cannot negotiate a deal that would allow the practice to relocate the several hundred yards.

This is a very important part of the city centre. In the long term the Tanner Street site will be in the heart of the Central Winchester Regeneration Area. The practice has an estimated 16,000 patients.

Yet all we know about the deadlock is a brief mention in a council report to the planning committee. The head of estates at the council writes: “Earlier advice that it would be a minimum of 19 months before the practice would be able to vacate the premises has altered. "Despite discussions between Winchester City Council and the doctors over a number of years, it is now looking unlikely that an agreement can be reached.”

Too much of public life in this country is habitually mired in secrecy.

The GP practice is part of the publicly-funded NHS.

The city council is publicly funded.

We have a right to know what is going on.