ISLANDERS campaigning to get a medical centre in West Mersea used the town’s annual carnival and an opportunity to get signatures on their petition.

Resident Pat Richardson and colleagues stood with the petition at the end of the procession route, the Legion Field in Barfield Road, the most likely site for the new centre.

Plans for the centre suffered a setback when members of neighbouring West Mersea Royal British Legion club voted not to give up two parking spaces outside the club, so the site entrance could be widened.

NHS North East Essex even offered to pay for extra parking spaces and a beer garden behind the British Legion club, as a way of sweetening the deal, but to no avail.

However, Mr Richardson hopes to change Legion members’ minds by showing the level of public support for a modern medical centre to replace Mersea’s existing, undersized GP surgery.

He said: “The Royal British Legion will not explain on what principle the decision was taken. It will not even reply to any of my letters. This places us in a very precarious situation. Everyone agrees we desperately need a new medical centre. The present surgery was built when the population was around 3,000.

“Now, in the summer months with holidaymakers, it can rise to 13,000. If the project does not get under way soon, we may lose the funding. Then we really will be in trouble.”

A local Royal British Legion spokesman, who declined to be named, said: “We called a special general meeting of all members and they voted not to go ahead.

“It was a democratic vote and the committee has to abide by it.”

Mr Richardson will also be out collecting signatures at the Mersea Regatta on Saturday.