Harrogate’s full-time coronavirus testing site is due to open next week.
The Department of Health and Social Care site will be located in the Dragon Road car park, which has been home to the mobile testing centre over the past few months.
The mobile testing centre has generally been open for four hours a day, two days a week.
The new full-time centre is due to begin operating on Wednesday next week. After an initial pilot period, it will be open between 8am and 8pm, seven days a week.
People will be able to turn up on foot, unlike at the mobile testing centres. However, tests must still be booked in advance,
While the permanent site is being built, the mobile testing facility will move to Harrogate Hydro on Friday this week and then Harrogate High School on Sunday.
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North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum, a partnership organisation that includes councils, emergency services and health bodies that tackle the pandemic, successfully made the case for permanent centres in Harrogate and Scarborough to the DHSC.
Dr Lincoln Sargeant, the director of public health in North Yorkshire, said:
“We have worked hard to retain and increase the level of testing across the county, so we are pleased that our efforts have resulted in the creation of these two sites, which will be up and running shortly.
“We will continue to lobby for further expansion of testing facilities across the county.”
The Stray Ferret asked the DHSC the cost of building the permanent testing centre in Harrogate but had not received a response by the time of publication.
The Harrogate district recorded a further 24 positive coronavirus cases today, according to the latest Public Health England figures.
It takes the total number of cases in the district since the start of the pandemic to 1,436.
