Women needing mammograms in Bromley are still waiting for the opening of a new £500,000 unit due to open four years ago.

The Bromley Breast Screening Service run by Bromley Primary Care Trust (PCT) has been based in a mobile unit in a car park in Masons Hill, Bromley, for the past decade.

Last year an old chapel at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough was converted to be a permanent home for the service’s equipment.

However, this is still empty and unused because of a dispute over who owns the building.

Margaret Jacobs, of Hayes Road, Bromley, has been going for appointments at the mobile unit for nearly 10 years.

The 66-year-old said: “I just can’t believe this is happening.

“I know quite a few people who have raised money for the new one and we are still going to a cabin in a car park.”

Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, says it owns the chapel and wants to charge rent for it but the Primrose Foundation says it was given ownership.

Mary Spinks, the director of the renamed Primrose Centre, first approached the health trusts six years ago, wanting to set up a fundraising group to raise money for a new centre.

She said: “It is not my intention to rest at the final hurdle.

“We feel sure agreements and promises will be honoured and the trustees of the Primrose Centre and the hospital trust will work together to achieve the end result of an excellent centre.”

A spokesman for Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust said: “The trust and the Primrose Foundation continue to be involved in very complex negotiations.”

Although the building is on the hospital site and the money raised by an independent charity, it is Bromley PCT which runs Bromley’s breast screening service.

A PCT spokesman said: “The trust is still keen to replace the current mobile unit with a permanent breast screening service in the old chapel.

“Progress is dependent on the negotiations between the Bromley Hospitals Trust and the Primrose Centre.”

l A report published in September into the financial management of Bromley Hospitals Trust investigated the project.

It says fundraising group the Primrose Foundation was set up in 2002 to pay for a conversion of the old chapel into a new unit for breast care services by 2004.

The report says this remains closed even after the delayed conversion, which went over budget by £250,000, was completed last year.

Report author Michael Taylor, who investigated the matter, said: “I was faced with an undercurrent of disquiet about the arrangements associated with the sale and development of land around the site of the old chapel.”

He added: “The (hospital) trust should endeavour to resolve the outstanding issues associated with the land transfer.”

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