Building a New Town at Adlington presents clear and material risks to the provision of healthcare. Existing GP, dental and hospital services serving the area are already under pressure, meaning the baseline capacity to absorb significant population growth is limited.
There are no plans for a new hospital to serve Adlington. Buxton Hospital does not operate a full Accident & Emergency (A&E) department; it provides an Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) for minor injuries and illnesses only. Patients requiring full emergency care are directed to Stepping Hill Hospital or Macclesfield District General Hospital, increasing travel distances and demand on hospitals that are already operating under sustained pressure.
Key Facts
- No new hospital is planned to serve a New Town at Adlington
- Buxton Hospital provides a UTC, not a full A&E service
- Full emergency care requires travel to Stepping Hill or Macclesfield
- GP appointment access is already challenging
- NHS workforce shortages limit the ability to expand services
Primary Care Capacity
Access to GP services is already challenging for many residents. Cheshire East is served by 34 GP practices, organised into 9 Primary Care Networks, covering a population of around 400,000 people 1. While GP practices across Cheshire and Merseyside are delivering high numbers of appointments, recruitment and retention of clinical staff remain ongoing challenges. National NHS workforce data shows that although the total number of GPs in England has risen modestly, the number of fully qualified, full-time-equivalent GPs has not kept pace with population growth, and pressures on appointment access persist 2. At the same time, average patient list sizes continue to increase, reflecting growing demand for primary care services 3.
New or expanded GP buildings alone do not address this issue. Without guaranteed doctors, nurses and support staff, additional premises do not translate into increased appointment availability.
Planning Obligations and Delivery Risk
Developers often rely on planning obligations to suggest that healthcare impacts can be mitigated. However, Section 106 contributions may fund buildings or equipment but cannot ensure the recruitment of clinical staff, nor can they resolve national NHS workforce shortages. As a result, there is no certainty that additional healthcare demand generated by a new town could be met in a timely or sustainable way.
Cumulative Infrastructure Pressure
The healthcare impacts must be considered alongside wider infrastructure constraints identified elsewhere on this site. Increased population places additional demand on:
- Schools, many of which are already operating close to capacity
- Transport networks, affecting access to GP surgeries, UTCs and hospitals
- Emergency services, where longer response and travel times to full A&E facilities increase risk
These pressures are cumulative and interdependent, not isolated.
Impact Over the Lifetime of the Development
Population growth associated with a new town would increase demand for healthcare year on year. In the context of ongoing NHS workforce shortages and constrained hospital capacity, this creates a long-term risk that healthcare provision will become progressively less accessible over the lifetime of the development.
Without clear, funded and deliverable proposals to provide sufficient healthcare capacity in advance of occupation, the proposal risks placing unacceptable strain on services relied upon by both existing and future residents.