Long queues and lack of space at the Brightlingsea Boots pharmacy look set to remain for the immediate future unless new premises can be found in the town.
At the October meeting of Brightlingsea Town Council, councillors were told that plans to extend the Boots store in Victoria Place have come to nothing because the building is unsuitable.
Cllr Jayne Chapman, who heads the council’s welfare and residents’ services team, said: “They’ve had a survey done on the shop and they cannot do the extension that they wanted because the footings won’t take it.”
She added: “They’re in a situation that if an empty shop unit or something that is bigger than what they have comes up they’ve asked anybody to let them know.”
Cllr Chapman was responding to a query from Cllr Jean Howard, who spoke of the difficulties experienced by a family member during frequent visits to the chemist.
“It really is quite an ordeal going in there now because there’s never anybody on the counter,” said Cllr Howard.
She added: “This is no aspersion on the staff – I think they’re brilliant. The conditions they’re working under there are unbelievable, all squashed behind the little pharmacy counter.”
Mayor Chris Paveley pointed out that he’d discussed the situation with the local NHS and the problems weren’t unique to Brightlingsea.
“The biggest problem throughout the country is pharmacists,” he said. “They just can’t get the pharmacists. They just can’t make up the drugs quickly enough.”
