A Kingston medical centre may close if it can’t secure parking for its patients and staff

Staff will quit and a medical centre may close if a Tasmanian council doesn’t help with public parking.

Aerial view of the site of the development at the old Kingston High School site. Picture: SUPPLIED

STAFF will quit and a medical centre may close if a Tasmanian council doesn’t sell to the clinic a public car park earmarked to become a pedestrian walkway.

In a letter issued to patients, John Street Medical Centre staff said the Kingborough Council intended to close a Kingston parking lot at 3 John St — next door to the practice — a site where many patients park their cars while visiting the clinic.

Practice manager Deborah Ward said the medical centre had offered to pay the council “top dollar” for a portion of the council-owned car park, but she said the council was not interested in selling.

Kingborough Council will vote on the medical centre’s proposal tonight.

The letter addressed to patients said: “the council may be going to suggest a short-term lease of part of the car park at a commercial rate to the practice”.

It continued: “This does not give the practice enough security and the lease will probably increase our costs to a non-viable amount.

(L-R) Developer Brett Robinson CEO of Traders In Purple and Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter at the Kingston High School site redevelopment. PICTURE CHRIS KIDD

“Our young doctors have indicated that, with this uncertainty, they will move on. We will not replace them, so, as a pair of staff retire, we will close.

“Kingston does not have enough doctors now and council has approved many more residents. We look after 5000 people — if we close, they will flood the already stressed services in Kingston and many residents will be impacted.

“Over almost four years we have done everything we can to convince the council that selling this piece of land to use for parking will be in the best long-term interest of the community.”

Transformation of the 3 John St car park to a public walkway would see the removal of about 80 car spaces.

WHY HAS THIS AFFODABLE HOUSING PROJECT ANGERED SO MANY RESIDENTS?

Mrs Ward said the practice currently had 14 spaces of its own for doctors, nurses and patients to share.

She said the closure of the public car park would force some of the clinic’s patients — many of whom were elderly and disabled — to walk a lengthy distance from the nearest available parking.

BIG AD SPEND WON’T SWAY COUNCIL, SAYS CR BURNET

Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter questioned whether it would be “appropriate to dispose of such a strategically important parcel of land from public ownership.

“While council has no immediate plans to close the car park, the site is earmarked for a public walkway to the community hub and proposed parkland precinct at Kingston Park at some stage, “ he said.

“We value the contribution John Street Medical has made to healthcare in Kingborough over decades, so we have been trying to accommodate their carparking requirements without compromising an important future public asset.”

[e-mail]