Scarborough new community diagnostics centre gets approved

​​Scarborough Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC), in Eastfield in Scarborough has been officially given planning permission ahead of opening next month (February).

​The 1,480 sqm diagnostics centre at Scarborough Business Park will provide ultrasound, X-ray, MRI, CT, and cardiorespiratory facilities for assessment and diagnosis of patients, along with the associated recovery and support spaces.

​The retrospective planning application was submitted last summer. The CDC is set to create around 30 jobs.

​It is expected to become fully functional by March and from April, it will offer at least one diagnostic service for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, the Government recently announced.

​Council officers said the building has been completed from a construction perspective but is “not operationally running as a community diagnostic centre”.

​The York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust considered that quickly delivering the centre was “essential as the indicators confirm that Eastfield faces substantial health needs and inequalities”.

​A planning report noted that areas with high deprivation, such as Eastfield, experience “lower life expectancy, higher premature mortality rates, especially from cardiovascular disease, and cancer”.

​The CDC car park will have 49 parking spaces, including four disabled and six car share spaces, as well as secure bicycle storage.

​To the west of the site is Schneider Electric’s recently constructed commercial building

​Seamer Parish Council raised concerns about the retrospective nature of the application, but did not object.

​The council’s ecologist said that “despite the failings in the biodiversity net gain assessment, it seems likely that the implementation of the submitted landscaping scheme would be likely to at least provide for no net loss of biodiversity on site”.

​The York and Scarborough NHS Trust said the sustainable two-storey hospital building would “allow patients to access planned diagnostic care nearer to home without the need to attend acute hospital sites”.

​North Yorkshire Council approved the retrospective application, subject to conditions, on Friday, January 23.