A POPULAR Uttoxeter dental surgery which has been a part of the town for nearly 40 years is relocating and rebranding to a high profile town centre location.
Uttoxeter Dental Practice, which was formerly known as Bason and Gathercole Dental Surgery, can now be found on Dovefields Retail Park after moving from its High Street surgery after 38 years.
The surgery, which also has a new logo as well as a new name, has 10,000 patients and is taking on more.
Partner Paul Bason (pictured), who runs the company with Jim Gathercole, said: “We will never turn people away.
“We have two new dentists, Lisa Benting and Jeremy Cresswell, joining the team in June and July, who are both highly experienced and from the area.”
The surgery was moved after the future of its High Street premises, above the Wilkinsons store, became uncertain as it could be demolished and the owners had no plans to re-let.
The 64-year-old said: “We had to move because of the uncertainty over the future of the building and to comply with new clinical guideline regulations for sterilisation. The new building has a proper decontamination room.
“We turned up at the site and thought this is going to be fantastic.
“Malcolm Barrett has been absolutely fantastic the whole time, it’s been wonderful.
“We are very pleased with the building, it has exceeded our expectations.
“The move has been totally stress free. All the staff working with us at the moment are brilliant, they have been working bank holidays to make it happen, it’s been terrific.” The dental surgery, which employs around 15 Uttoxeter people, opened its doors yesterday and has mainly NHS patients but does have a private element.
It also has an open door policy which means people needing to see a dentist urgently will be seen the same day.
Mr Bason became a dentist in 1970 and set up the surgery with Mr Gathercole, who he qualified with at university, in 1973 “I think the patients will like the new building because of the disabled access with the lift and the free parking,” he said.
“It is a new premises with better facilities.
“It is win-win as we can now treat more disabled people as we could not properly before as they struggled to get up the stairs.”
Landowner Malcolm Barrett said: “We as a company are very pleased and very proud that we could assist in retaining a well-established local business in Uttoxeter on this site.”
