PLANS have been submitted to convert a Salisbury GP surgery into two homes and build a further five on the car park.

The application for St Ann Street Surgery is seeking planning permission from Wiltshire Council for the conversion of the grade II Listed building, which also has a two bedroom residential flat, into two semi-detached houses.

The plans also include the development of the existing 18 bay car park into five homes - four three-bed properties and one two-bed, which would be in a "mews style".

A design and access statement submitted with the application said: "A substantial three storey building with basement, the use as a doctors surgery is not necessarily well-suited; patients need to negotiate four steep steps from the front door with further split levels at each storey into the consultation rooms."

The planning statement said the proposals for 82 St Ann's Street sought to "return the building back to its original function as a dwelling house and remove some of the damaging later interventions inside and out that have impacted its significance as a heritage asset in an important Salisbury conservation area".

In terms of the car park development, the statement said the two storey building would be "well away from neighbouring properties and the main house itself".

A statement from Three Chequers Medical Practice, which is made up of The Endless Street, Three Swans and St Ann Street surgeries, said: "It was, and remains, our intention to build a modern, purpose-built site in the city centre, but this has proved far more difficult than we had hope, despite engagement from the local council and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

"The St Ann Street Surgery building has always been owned not by the Three Chequers Medical Practice, but by the original GP Partners of the St Ann Street Surgery, and those owners have taken the decision to utilise the building for other purposes. This decision was beyond our control, and we are sorry that this will come as a disappointment to many of our patients.

"In order to compensate for the loss of clinical space at St Ann Street Surgery, we are planning to redevelop our village practices at Porton and Winterslow, and we continue to actively negotiate with the local council to find a suitable site in or around Salisbury city centre at which to build our new surgery. In the meantime, we feel that centralising our services from our two remaining sites at Three Swans and Endless Street will provide safer and more effective care for our patients, and greater resilience for our staff."

The statement added: "We would like to thank our patients and staff for their support and understanding, particularly in view of the dramatic changes we have already made to services in response to the current COVID-19 Pandemic.  We are already looking ahead to how we might build on what we have learned during this crisis to improve our patient care in the long term. 

"We would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all our staff at the Three Chequers Medical Practice for their dedication to patient care during this crisis.  We are proud to stand with our NHS colleagues in Salisbury and across the country during these unprecedented times."

To view and comment on the application go to wiltshire.gov.uk (Reference 20/01940/FUL).