UP to 9,000 new NHS dental places could be created in York, after councillors gave a practice the go-ahead to expand.

Dobson and Associates dental practice, in Lawrence Street, was given the green light to move in to a neighbouring property, which would see four new surgery rooms created and four new dentists recruited.

City of York Council's east area planning sub-committee unanimously approved the plans at a meeting in the Guildhall.

Principal dentist Robert Dobson said: "We have been in our existing building for 16 years, and we are hoping to provide an additional 9,000 places with four extra surgeries, which will also be on the ground floor and have disabled access which is rare in York."

The scheme is part of a broader move by York and Selby Primary Care Trust to drive down NHS dentist waiting lists.

In May, the Evening Press reported the trust wanted to create 16,000 new NHS places over the next three years.

Council officers said applications to convert houses in to business properties such as this were often rejected, but in this case the small loss of residential property was outweighed by increased dental capacity.

Supporting the plans, Labour councillor Ken King said: "Because this is an NHS dental surgery and we are desperately short of places I will support this - if it had been a private dentist, I wouldn't have.

"I believe the benefits will outweigh the losses of turning a residential building in to a business."

York MP Hugh Bayley had written to the council to urge them to approve the application because of the overwhelming public interest in finding good NHS dental treatment. Also at the meeting residents got their way after plans to site a mobile phone mast at the junction of Broadway and Heslington Lane - only yards from homes - were withdrawn. T-Mobile agreed to withdraw the plans for the mast, if plans were approved for another mast 50 yards away on land opposite the Fairways Garden Centre.

The compromise deal between phone giant T-Mobile and Heslington Lane residents was given the go-ahead.

Resident Judi Legg said she was delighted the councillors had acted as they did in approving the second site, after a five-year battle with mobile phone companies.

In August last year, the residents were delighted, after winning a similar battle to have a mobile phone mast sited away from their homes.

At that time a compromise was struck with O2 to site a 17.5m mast opposite the garden centre in Heslington Lane, and not at the Broadway and Heslington Lane junction.

Updated: 10:11 Tuesday, July 19, 2005