DOCTORS in Wellington are worried about all the new patients they will be expected to see as thousands of new homes are built in the town over the next few years.

Wellington Medical Centre says there are times now when GPs are ‘saturated’ and cannot take further calls from patients.

One option could be to close their patient list, but they acknowledge such a move could adversely affect their services.

It is not just doctors who should be worried.

The people who live in these new homes will not only want to use local GPs, they will send their children to local schools, let them use local play parks, and drive their cars on local roads.

And here’s the rub.

Many will not actually be living in Wellington.

For, some of the sites being eyed by developers lie outside the town’s boundaries and fall in neighbouring, small parish council areas.

So, Wellington council taxpayers will be coughing up for facilities for people living in other parishes.

One answer could be to redraw the town’s boundaries to absorb those areas, a process known as a ‘community governance review’.

Town councillors were asked two years ago to do exactly that, but refused.