Garage fighting eviction after 50 years of service

A doctor’s surgery could be part of a development built on a Surbiton garage that has served residents for almost 50 years.

Loyal customers are campaigning to save Surbiton Hill Garage in the Avenue, following an application to build a block of flats and a GP surgery on the site. George Matkin, the garage’s owner, has started a petition to try to save it, with more than 300 signatures so far.

The landowner, Mr M Daly, a Dublin-based businessman, applied to build a block of flats on the site in 2007. His application was rejected because it was an “unacceptable loss of an existing employment use”. He has returned now six years later with a proposal for a doctor’s surgery within the development.

A spokesman for Kingston Clinical Commissioning Group, which holds the purse strings of NHS spending in the borough, said it had not heard from anybody looking to open a new surgery in Surbiton. A resident has claimed a Surbiton GP surgery has already agreed to move into the building, if the application goes through.

Four existing GP surgeries in Surbiton will be relocating to the new health centre at the beginning of March, as part of a programme aiming to centralise services.

The garage was formed in 1964 and Mr Matkin has been running it for more than 25 years.

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