New Pharmacy for Knaresborough
Another of our summer oral hearings has resulted in the NHS granting permission for one of our clients to open a new pharmacy in the busy market town of Knaresborough. This was an interesting application to work on as there has previously been a branch of Boots approximately 500 metres from the site where our client applied, but the Boots store had closed down when their site was purchased by developers for a new Lidl supermarket. The Boots pharmacy had been very busy, dispensing over 8,000 items every month and had tried hard to stay open even though they did not try to relocate to other premises and closed in the end as Boots no doubt felt that their other two branches in Knaresborough would pick up most of the business.
We often see contractors putting in applications when another pharmacy closes, but these are rarely granted as the closures tend to be because of poor trading. In this case NHS Resolution decided to hold an oral hearing and we represented our client at the hearing and invited the local mayor to come along as a witness for our client. The oral hearing panel agreed that our client’s application should be granted and we understand they intend to open early in 2018.
A copy of the appeal decision can be found on the NHS Regulation website.