A TRAVEL plan submitted more than five years after approval for the building of Corringham's new integrated medical centre says there is no expectation of parking or congestion problems around the new site.

Construction is now well underway for the centre on The Sorrells which is expected to open in the spring of 2022. It will be operated by North East London NHS Foundation Trust and is described in the travel plan just submitted to Thurrock Council as 'a partial replacement for the near-by Orsett Hospital which is closing and being replaced with several smaller medical centres such as the CIMC to serve Thurrock on a more local level'.

The report adds that staff will transition from Orsett hospital to the medical centres with new staff where required to support the existing staff. It is not yet detailed which services will be switching from Orsett to Corringham – though all proposals associated with the eventual closure of Orsett had inferred will not lose services until all the new centres are open.

It is anticipated that there will be around 90 staff members (of which 12 are clinical staff) at the Corringham centre which will serve 4,000 patients based when fully occupied. The report adds: "The Corringham centre will have, as a likely maximum, 90 staff consisting of medical but mainly administrative / facility maintenance roles (it is unknown what number of these staff would be part-time). This will be known closer to the opening of the CIMC. There will be 12 clinical staff at the CIMC as a maximum at any one time.

The main access to the centre, which the report says will see 62 per cent of visitors and staff using vehicles, will be along from the access road to the adjacent Graham James Primary Academy. The report, which records that the busiest times for traffic at the centre will roughly coincide with the likely busiest time at the school, makes no mention of any potential travel conflict with parents dropping off or picking up children at the school nor any pedestrian issues.

The car park at the new centre will have provision for 34 cars. However, according to the travel plan that will be sufficient as the maximum number of vehicles using the centre car park, including visitors, at any one time is projected to be 32 - which is between 9 and 10am. See table which shows projected use.

The full travel plan for the new centre can be found via this link

In theory Thurrock Council planners could reject the travel plan, though with construction so far advanced, that seems unlikely. Residents can comment on the travel plan via the link.

A separate application has also been submitted to make changes to window location and the placing of rubbish bins on the site: they van be read via this link.