NEW POOLE SURGERY OPEN NOW!
Pop in for a coffee to meet our lovely team – with or without your pet 🙂
After a mammoth refurbishment project, and to much local acclaim, we were delighted to finally reopen the doors to this famous landmark establishment on July 11th 2016! See below to follow our journey through the process and most importantly come to visit us and see the fruits of our labours in person – even if you don’t have a pet and just want to have a peek!
Read more about the opening here:
It is with great pleasure and excitement that we can finally reveal that our new Poole practice at Darby’s Corner will be throwing wide its doors to all on Monday July 11th at 8.30am.
After six long months of toil, trouble and more twists and turns than Alton Towers, we are finally there and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been up to all these many months!
However, you don’t have to wait until then to make an appointment – you can ring our practice in Bournemouth on 01202 427404 and we will happily get you booked in. Our initial opening hours will be the same as our existing Bournemouth branch in Boscombe East (8.30-18.30 Mon-Fri and 9.00-16.00 Saturdays).
Even if you don’t need to see a vet or nurse, or even if you are an established member of our Boscombe East family, we would still love to see you and show you around our shiny new practice. You can be assured of a warm welcome from the friendly Natterjacks team that many of you will be so familiar with already 🙂
As well as our existing low prices and offers we will be running some great opening offers and we will also be hosting a big festival later in the summer for all our friends across Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch – watch this space!
We can’t wait to see you!!
The Natterjacks Gang
** Update 4th June 2016 **
The new practice is now in the final stages with all the hospital wards fitted out and much of the practice furniture now in place. Every day we eagerly receive new equipment and piece by piece the jigsaw is coming together, and what a fine looking one it is ;-). Most of our new staff are busy soaking up the Natterjacks philosophy over in Bournemouth and are itching to bring it over to Poole…… However (!), our tricky old beast of a castle at Darby’s Corner is clearly keen to extend its long break from public duty for just a little bit longer! After many months of pestering we finally managed to get the gas board round to connect up the gas supply, only to be told that the whole supply is obsolete and needs digging up and replacing :-S! No gas = no hot water, an essential ingredient in any hospital environment! However we are hoping to work round this problem and get the doors open by the end of June or the first week of July at the latest – we will post weekly updates here now until we get final clearance for lift off so please visit regularly……see you very soon!
** Update May 14th 2016 **
Work continues apace on the new practice at Darby’s Corner and we can barely contain our excitement as the eagerly-awaited opening draws ever closer. Thanks to you all for your patience as well as your continued enthusiasm and support for the new practice in spite of some rather unexpected delays. It was always going to be a big project and it has been harder work than we expected but it is going to be amazing when finished and we can’t wait to throw open the doors and hold our first party! We haven’t been helped by break-ins (please don’t smash our nice new windows :-S!), asbestos, rising damp and the theft of lead from the roof but nonetheless we are winning the battle and we are now in the final stages of the project.
Of course, the big question on everyone’s lips is exactly WHEN do those hallowed doors once again open to the public and the answer should be revealed in the next week or two but realistically it is likely to be in June now. We won’t wait for the dust to settle or the paint to finish drying, rest assured that we are chomping at the bit to show off what we’ve been up to this last six months and be warned – you may even be furnished with a set of overalls and a paint brush if we’re still applying the finishing touches on your first visit 😉 !
Remember that you can register for the new practice now through our registration form and we are already seeing many patients who just can’t wait a moment longer at our Bournemouth surgery as a stopgap measure. However we promise this won’t be necessary for much longer and we will soon be announcing the birth of our new arrival to the whole world from the rooftops of all of Bournemouth and Poole! See you soon 🙂 !
Yes the cat is out of the bag, the beans have been spilt…. we’re coming to Poole! Late last year we acquired the Darby’s Corner Inn from Hall and Woodhouse and we feel privileged to be the guardians of such a famous local landmark. Now work has started to bring it back to it’s former glory! If you don’t where it is located, then follow this link.
A DILAPIDATED former pub in Poole is set to be transformed into a new veterinary surgery more than four years after its sudden closure. The Darby’s Corner pub in Waterloo Road, which closed over night in April 2011 to the surprise of staff who turned up to work to find it boarded up, is finally set for a new lease of life. Left empty and in an increasingly poor state of repair…. continue reading
The site we have acquired is well known to many Poole residents, many of whom will have enjoyed a pint or a family dinner there in the past. It is sad to see it in such a sorry state and we are immensely excited to be breathing life back into the old building. We are aware that many people will mourn the loss of their pub so we particularly keen to ensure that it is something that benefits the whole community and since we have lots of space to play with we are inviting local people to send in their ideas as to what we may have alongside the practice – under consideration are a cafe, micropub, children’s play area, wildlife garden, exhibition/meeting rooms etc – do email your ideas to the practice at hello@natterjacksvet.com. Importantly, we want it to be a facility that local people will be proud of, as with our existing branch in Bournemouth.
But what about Boscombe East?
If you are worried that this will adversely affect anything at our existing surgery then fear not! Everything and everyone will remain the same in Boscombe East, it’s just that you are all telling us that it is getting a bit cosy at times where we are now and since we have a lot of patients on the western side of our fabulous conurbation we are keen to provide these patients with their own sparkling new facility! As well as being more convenient for these residents, it will also give us space for some new specialist facilities to benefit both clinics to help ensure that we remain at the forefront of the profession.
Leading the way in Poole will be vet Dan – he spent a lot of time working at a large corporate practice nearby and has many fans in the area already. He will be joined by local girl Rachel Tucker who was until recently a much loved member of another practice in Bournemouth, and all backed up of course by our legendary nursing team (with a few new faces too!). Whilst Poole will have it’s own dedicated team of vets and nurses, there will be some overlap with Bournemouth to ensure that we keep the same spirit and ethos that has helped set our existing practice on such a good footing. However, we realise that the key to the success of the new clinic will be you and your four legged friends and we will need your feedback and suggestions to help shape and improve our new practice according to your needs and desires :-). The Natterjacks aim is to always exceed your expectations and if we haven’t left with you with that warm, treacly feeling of contentment then we need to know why.
When will the new practice open?
Building working started at the beginning of January and placing an exact timescale for the work is difficult as it is a complex task with hurdles at nearly every step – not least problems associated with damp, asbestos and leaky roofs! All the windows need replacing too – it might have been easier to knock it down and start again but we are determined to keep this art deco beast alive and all being well we are hoping to throw open those pub doors once again after Easter!
Watch this space for updates and photos as this exciting project unfolds – we will have some special offers and events to mark the arrival of the new practice and a summer festival once things are in full swing. In the meantime you can follow the work in our photo gallery here.
Click on the image below to get an idea of the way things look now and how they might soon appear 🙂
