Plans for Rossdales extension backed by Newmarket Town Council

Plans for an extension to a Newmarket equine veterinary surgery have been given the backing of the town council.

An application from Rossdales, the UK’s largest equine practice, to extend their premises at Beaufort Cottage with a two-storey extension to the front of the existing laboratory and a single-storey ‘loggia’ extension within a courtyard, have been submitted for approval to planners at Forest Heath District Council.

Members of the town council, who had made a site visit to the premises which lie between the High Street and Fitzroy Street, discussed the plans at Monday’s meeting of the council’s planning committee and gave them their support.

Committee chairman Cllr John Morrey said the proposed extensions would be ‘a great addition to the existing facilities’.

The two-storey building would house an equine diagnostics laboratory which would upgrade the practice’s current classification for laboratory use and safety to staff.

It would provide an open-plan space for disciplines such as biochemistry, endocrinology, haematology and cytology which would link to the existing Victorian building where the main laboratory is housed. Disabled access and facilities are included in the plans.

The single-storey ‘loggia’ extension will over-sail the front of the first courtyard in a timber frame. It will provide the main visitor entrance and allow visitors easy access to reception, the pharmacy and the administrative desk for horse passports.

Within this area it is planned to have a small exhibition area that
will tell the story of racing in Newmarket but also the history of the Rossdale practice which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary in the town.

In that time it has expanded to include a team of more than 50 highly-qualified equine veterinary surgeons with 100 support staff spread between the original High Street practice, the state-of-the-art veterinary hospital at Exning and bases in Hertfordshire and Lambourn.

The Queen opened the equine hospital at Exning in 1989 and returned in 2008 to open is new diagnostic centre and MRI and CT imaging unit. At the end of 2017, a new medical intensive care unit admitted its first patient.