DOCTORS at Cromer are seeking a new £1.5m surgery after long-standing plans to switch them to the rebuilt hospital were scrapped.The Overstrand Road practice was built in the 1960s and has been extended three times, but is struggling to cope with the 12,500-patient workload.

DOCTORS at Cromer are seeking a new £1.5m surgery after long-standing plans to switch them

to the rebuilt hospital were scrapped.

The Overstrand Road practice was built in the 1960s and has been extended three times, but is struggling to cope with the 12,500-patient workload.

Senior partner Alasdair Lennox said there had been talk for many years about possible relocation on the new hospital site.

But as details of the new Cromer hospital were firmed up Norfolk

and Norwich University Hospital officials had now decided against it.

Now the move was “definitely not happening” the practice needed to enlarge its facilities - preferably on the current site, but all options were being looked at.

A meeting of the NHS Norfolk board heard initial plans for Cromer were part of a major wave of surgery improvements across the county amounting to £10m over five

years.

Meanwhile the plans for a new £26m hospital at Cromer have been lodged with planning officials and councillors are likely to debate the long-awaited rebuild early in the new year, while health bosses will look at a detailed business case, and a start made on construction, in the middle of 2009.

VISIONOFTHEFUTURE: An artist's impression of the new £26m hospital at Cromer.