A LARGE retirement home could be built by the side of a proposed £6.75 million city GP surgery.

The 51 retirement flats would make up the other half of the old Faithful workwear plot in Northwick Road, Worcester, if developers get permission.

At the moment two Worcester GP practices, Berwyn House Surgery in Shrubbery Avenue and Thorneloe Lodge Surgery in Barbourne Road, are hoping to move to the new surgery on the Northwick Road side of the plot.

Birmingham firm Projects 2000, handling the GP surgery development, has applied with Aspen Retirement to build the flats on the Neweys Hill side.

Berwyn House partner Dr Charlie Little said if the flats failed to get planning permission the GPs would have to find an “alternative use” for that half of the site. “Hopefully it won’t fail,” he said.

Dr Little said the GPs would not make any money from developing the rest of the site and would have preferred “to have nothing to do” with it. But they were asked by landowner Lovell Partnerships to buy an option on the whole site or risk paying more, which could potentially make the surgery “unaffordable”.

NHS Worcestershire is now deciding whether to fund the surgery.

Meanwhile, both developments have attracted the fury of many residents.

They argue the site’s single access road off Eastbank Drive, opposite Waterford Close, will overload the congested drive, which is already taking traffic from the Northwick Marina and Northwick Manor Primary School.

Ian Cranston, of Bankside Close, said if the flats were built it would add to the current peak-time problems. He said: “Extra traffic as a result of this application being approved would be a total disaster.”

Jill and Jeff Bladen, of Waterford Close, urged developers to rethink, saying: “There is a perfectly good entrance to the site in Northwick Road.”

However, that access currently runs through the centre of the proposed surgery building.

There is also anger that the three-storey surgery will overlook nearby homes.

A developer-commissioned traffic report accepted there would be more traffic but concluded Eastbank Drive could take the extra volume.

A city council spokesman said highways chiefs had not raised any objections to the plans.