LONG-standing plans to build a new doctor’s surgery at Wickham have been approved.

The 15-room facility will be built off Mill Lane near the community centre after the existing surgery outgrew its site in Station Road.

The project, which has been in the pipeline since the building of Knowle Village, was unanimously given the go-ahead.

It could be joined nearby by a development of 20 affordable houses, which is due to be considered by planners in the next few months.

Dr Steve Smallwood, from Wickham Surgery, said: “I have been trying to get our surgery rebuilt since Knowle Village was being built, this has gone on for many years.”

If planners had rejected the scheme its future would have been in serious doubt. This is because, with the scrapping of primary care trusts, funding was only in place until April 2012.

Therese Evans, city councillor for Wickham, said the whole community was behind the new surgery.

She said: “The current surgery has outgrown its site. There’s not enough consulting rooms – I myself have had a blood test in a cupboard!”