DENTAL patients in Wantage can now get their fillings done in a converted church.

The former St Mary’s School Chapel in Newbury Street opens as Wantage House Dental Practice today.

Dental firm Rodericks has invested more than £500,000 in the NHS practice which will feature glass cubicles in the listed building.

Staff hope to treat about 3,000 patients in the first year.

The chapel was put up for sale after the school site was sold to developer Berkeley Homes for housing. Rodericks bought the chapel last year.

Carlos Clark, a director at Rodericks, said: “It will be a beautiful place to work – a real contrast of the modern and all the existing features of the church.”

But former St Mary’s School pupil Louise Goodall, 52, said: “It makes me very sad for the nuns who gave the school to a trust in good faith.”

Wantage businessmen Andrew Burford and David Tinker had put forward an alternative plan to turn the chapel into a performing arts centre.

Mr Burford, 45, said: “I am delighted that the dentists are coming to town but I think they could have found a better place that is more suitable.

“I hope they vacate in a few years’ time so it can be used for a community venue.”