York Place Dental Practice has been taken over by Dr John Taylor and his wife Joanne.

Yorkshire-born Dr Taylor qualified at Newcastle University in 1989 and has gone on to work in practices in North Yorkshire and the Channel Islands.

For the past five years he has been in partnership in a Pickering dental practice, but decided that the time was right for him to move on.

Dr Taylor said: “I have a real vision of how I would like our practice to be.

“At York Place I feel that we have the opportunity to create something really special. I am a perfectionist at heart and it is important to me that we provide the very best service and the very best dentistry for all our patients, old and new.”

Dr Taylor has taken over York Place Dental Practice from Dr Radim Kocourek, who has had to return to the Czech Republic because of ill health. Nurses Yvonne Hargreaves and Alison Brice said they were delighted Dr Taylor was taking over the reins at York Place.

Ms Hargreaves said: “John’s ethos is very similar to that of Radim’s as he creates a very calming atmosphere in the practice.

“We were very sad that Radim had to leave but John has made the transition a very smooth one both for us and the patients.”

Mrs Taylor is taking on the role of practice manager and is also a clinical hypnotherapist and master practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

Dr Taylor plans to provide help for anxious patients at the new practice.

Until recently Mrs Taylor also had her own practice in Pickering.

She said: “It made sense for us to join forces when we decided to buy the Scarborough practice.

“I specialise in helping clients who suffer from stress, anxiety and phobias and there are many people who feel that way about coming to the dentist.’’