PLANS have been revealed for a new medical centre in Kidderminster which would bring two practices together on to a single site.

The application has been submitted to Wyre Forest District Council by Matrix Medical to build the 1.02 acre medical centre at the former printworks site at the corner of Waterloo Street and Coventry Street. Current buildings will be demolished and the new facility will also include a new retail pharmacy.

It is proposed the building would house the Kidderminster Health Centre Practice and Forest Glades Medical Centre facilities, which are currently about 150 metres away in Bromsgrove Street and look after a total of about 14,000 patients.

In a planning statement, the applicants say the building has been deigned to include a "significant amount of expansion space to enable a larger provision of services to be provided in the future". As it stands, the number of doctors - nine in total - and patients will stay the same as the two practices will simply transfer to the new building.

The statement added: "The new facility will represent an improvement on the existing health care centre, including additional and larger consulting and treatment rooms and a pharmacy on site to comply with current NHS standards.

"The overall design philosophy has been to create a building that is welcoming to visitors while also enabling staff to provide the appropriate levels of care."

The applicants say they want to provide a "landmark facility at a site highly visible from the Kidderminster ring road, shielding views to the BT exchange building at the rear".

A car park with space for 69 cars will also be provided, including seven disabled spaces.

Designed around 40 years ago the space provided is both inadequate for doctors healthcare requirements and falls well below the minimum standards of care required by the NHS. The building is no longer fit for purpose.

NHS England has supported and proposed the new building, which has been talked about for about eight years.

Initially it was planned to extend the Forest Glades Medical Centre but that was soon disregarded before a scheme to build a five-storey facility on the car park between the Bromsgrove Street health centre and Forest Glades Leisure Centre was proposed.

That plan was scrapped, however, due to "major site complications".

The application will go before the district council's planning committee, in June, for a decision. If everything goes according to plan, it is hoped construction will start on the new facility towards the end of this year.