A medical centre in Abingdon is planning to extend its practice to keep up with the growing number of houses in the town.

Long Furlong Medical Practice at 45 Loyd Close submitted an application on April 19 to build three additional consultation rooms and one admin room.

This comes following the approval in 2017 of a plan for 900 new homes on Twelve Acre Drive.

READ MORE: Emma Watson to study at Oxford University in September

There have also been a series of other smaller housing proposals.

A spokesperson from Long Furlong Medical Centre said: “There are a lot of new homes being built in Abingdon and more people moving into the area.

Oxford Mail:

“Our planning application to extend our ground floor space will give us more consultation rooms to care for the growing number of patients within our practice area and allow us to recruit more clinical staff.”

The extension would be achieved by building into the car park of the practice.

This would reduce the number of parking spaces available at the centre, but traffic modelling suggests that this would not have a detrimental impact on the operation of the local road network.

MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Layla Moran has spoken in favour of the proposals.

She hit out at the Conservative government for the ‘difficult circumstances’ that doctors and nurses currently find themselves in.

Ms Moran said: "I am delighted to see the planning application submitted for an extension to Long Furlong Medical Centre.

“I visited the surgery and spoke to staff last year, and I know what a big difference the extra consulting rooms will make.

“I will be working closely with those involved on issues including parking.

“Across Oxfordshire, doctors and nurses are doing their best in really difficult circumstances, but years of mismanagement by this Conservative government has driven local health services into the ground.

READ MORE: Oxford college submits plan to build nearly 1,500 new homes in city

“We urgently need a proper plan to boost GP numbers.

“Local people in North Abingdon will be extremely pleased to see this development, and I will be keeping a close eye on the application as it progresses.”

Oxford Mail:

Councillor Nathan Ley who represents Abingdon North on Oxfordshire County Council has also lent his support to the proposals.

He said: “At a time when GP numbers are falling and health services are being run into the ground nationally by the central government, for me this is a positive application, so I’m fully supportive of Long Furlong Surgery’s application to extend and provide greater capacity locally.

“This is a good use of developer funding and should ‘futureproof’ the service offering moving forwards.”

The Department for Health and Social Care were contacted for comment in relation to the claims made to the Oxford Mail.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We have made up to £14.1 billion available for health and social care over the next two years, on top of record funding, to make sure patients get the care they need.

"We are boosting capacity with hundreds more doctors in general practice than last year, record numbers in training and we have almost reached our target of delivering 26,000 additional primary care staff.

“We are making progress in ensuring patients who need an appointment are seen within two weeks, and those with urgent needs are seen on the same day with almost two million more GP appointments delivered when compared to this time last year – that’s 83,500 more appointments each working day.

“We will set out details of further support soon, through our primary care recovery plan and our long term workforce plan.”