Go-ahead given for new £32 million Lisnaskea health centre on the site of old high school
Building work is set to begin within weeks on a new health centre in Co Fermanagh.
It has now been signed off by the health minister, having previously been given the thumbs-up last year by planning officials and the council.
The Department of Health says that it will “support a network of 16 GPs and provide services to around 30,000 people in the Lisnaskea and surrounding east Fermanagh area”.
The Western Health and Social Care Trust will now award a building contract for the project, which will sit on the site of the town’s now-demolished high school.
Minister Mike Nesbitt said the site will handle podiatry, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, mental health services, and older people’s services, and called it a “significant investment".
It is anticipated that the new health and care centre will open in 2026.
Ulster Unionist MLA for the area Lord Elliott said it was “hugely welcome news” – not just for patients, “but also for all the staff that are working in the existing inadequate Lisnaskea premises”.
He said that he had been worried about whether it would really get the go-ahead in recent months, given “increased costs and ongoing budget constraints at Stormont”.
Local UUP councillor Victor Warrington added that the new building “can’t come a day too soon”.
He said “the closure of the high school in Lisnaskea left a hole in the town” and that the site had been “lying dormant for far too long”.
Lisnaskea is the third-biggest town in the Fermanagh and Omagh council area (after Omagh and Enniskillen).
A planning report into the blueprints last year said they would create a “quality and sustainable environment, respectful of the surrounding context and character of the site”.
The planning report says the existing health centre in the town was built in 1972 and had grown “too small”.
It added: “Demand on the service has increased over recent years, and it is anticipated that this will increase further in the coming years.
"The southeast region of Co Fermanagh is facing considerable pressures, following the retirement of a number of GPs affecting rural areas such as Rosslea, Newtownbutler and Maguiresbridge.
"It is estimated that the population in the county will increase by 3% between 2019 and 2039. This includes an increase in the 65-plus age group of 48.8%.”