Dental practice lease agreed but opening date has already slipped

Bradley Stoke is to gain its first dental practice, located on the upper floor of the town’s new shopping mall currently under construction in the new town centre development at Savages Wood Road.

Details of the proposed practice first came to light in the agenda for the Board Meeting of the South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) on 30th April 2008. Under an item titled “Tender Process for the new Bradley Stoke Dental Practice”, the Board was recommended to:

Agree to a national tender process in line with the PCT’s contestability framework.
Agree to the proposal to enter into a temporary lease with Tesco Stores Limited to secure the facility in Bradley Stoke whilst the tender process is completed.
Approve the outline project plan for managing the tender process.

The proposed timeline included :

Invitation to tender published in the British Dental Journal by 12th May 2008.
Contract to start 8th October 2008.
Service to commence 15th December 2008.

The PCT duly confirmed that it had entered into a lease agreement with Tesco Stores in a statement made to The Journal on 9th May 2008:

The PCT is very pleased to confirm that the PCT Board have approved a lease agreement with Tesco for the siting of a dental surgery in the new shopping centre as part of the ongoing programme of development of quality services in the area.

However, when The Journal enquired as to the progress of the tender process on 12th June 2008, we were given the following statement by the PCT:

The PCT is commissioning a new dental service in Bradley Stoke with an anticipated opening date of April 2009. The site has been secured and will be a two surgery practice within the new Mall currently being developed as part of the Tesco development.

An advert [has been] placed in the British Dental Journal. The deadline [for expressions of interest] is 25th June.

The PCT did not indicate why the projected opening date has slipped from December 2008 to April 2009.

The town’s new two-storey shopping mall (pictured below – under construction) is attached to the new Tesco Extra store and is due to open in “late autumn [2008]” according to the latest available information released by Tesco.