Staff at the St James Medical Practice, which has been run by Dr Prakash Kuwar since 1994, said they were ‘sad’ to be leaving a building they’d worked in for years, reports Marco Marcelline & Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter
A 1950s medical practice in Walthamstow has shut its doors today as it prepares a stop-gap move to two different practices before transferring to a specially built facility in Brunner Road in 2026.
Open since the 1950s, Dr Prakash Kawar, 75, took over St James Medical Practice in 1994, and brought his daughter Shalini into the partnership in 2010.
The medical practice was supposed to move to a new facility in Brunner Road built as part of Waltham Forest Council’s Jazz Yard development last year but this has now been delayed to “early 2026” because the centre is still yet to be fitted out.
Prakash and Shalini had been unsuccessful in negotiating a lease extension for St James with Waltham Forest Council, the NHS and landlord YourTribe. The lease ran out today.
As a result the practice will be split across the Firs Medical Centre, in Stephenson Road, and Forest Road Centre, which are both smaller than St James.
Standing in the now empty reception office, operations manager Samara Mirza, who has worked at the practice for seven years, told the Echo she was “sad” to leave the building. “I mean, it’s somewhere we’ve probably spent more time in than at home; you’re going to develop a fondness [for the place].”
She said she was going to move to nearby The Firs Medical Centre, and while staff will be split between The Firs and the Forest Road practice, she said there would “thankfully” still be joint meetings involving everyone.
Where just last week there were full waiting rooms with wailing babies, all that was left now were stacks of chairs, while piles of cardboard boxes packed with drugs, health equipment, and documents filled the main office.
This story is published by Waltham Forest Echo, Waltham Forest's free monthly newspaper and free news website. We are a not-for-profit publication, published by a small social enterprise. We have no rich backers and rely on the support of our readers. Donate or become a supporter.
Hauling one of these boxes into a removal van was Shalini, who said that while the closure had been “stressful”, she was relieved that there would be one clinical base, rather than two, as had been proposed earlier.
She said: “Having one clinical base [at Firs] means patients won’t have to constantly go between two different medical centres. It will be less confusing for them.”
Prakash added: “It’s wonderful not to have to move from here to there, but in a year’s time plus, we’ll have to move again from [Firs and Forest Road] to Brunner Road. It’s going to be another stressful move and on top of that, because there’s so much of confusion with the patient, so we’ll lose a lot of patients. And patients bring money, income.”
Prakash, who will turn 76 next month, plans to continue working as the senior GP through the next move to Brunner Road.
One staff member, who has worked in the practice for the past seven years, told the Echo she would be moved to Comely Bank Clinic on Ravenswood Road.
While she expressed frustration at the delayed move to the new facility in Brunner Road, she said she wouldn’t miss the “cold” and poorly heated building, which was especially uncomfortable to work in during winter months.
Philip Herhily, a longstanding member of the practice, said: “After a period of really alarming uncertainty the practice has today safely settled across two interim sites. But in about a year’s time it’ll move again, to a shiny new state-of-the-art health centre close to the old one which served some of us for half a century. The future is looking bright again for patients in this part of Walthamstow.”
Landlord YourTribe plans to turn the site into student halls containing 224 rooms in buildings between three to six storeys tall, built around a courtyard with an entrance on St James Street. They will be exclusively marketed to students at Portsmouth University’s Walthamstow campus for the first three months.
No news is bad news
Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.
The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.
If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.
Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.
Monthly direct debit
Annual direct debit
£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.
More information on supporting us monthly or annually
More Information about donations