CIVIC chiefs have resisted pressure to sever the development of a new doctors surgery from the Silver Hill scheme.

The overcrowded St Clements Surgery is due to be replaced as part of the £150 million development, but planning permission to rebuild on Upper Brook Street car park expired in July.

Winchester City Council has dismissed claims by anti-Silver Hill campaigner Cllr Kim Gottlieb that tying it to the controversial revamp will put the surgery's 17,000 patients at risk.

Reapplying is expected to take several months, with work to begin on site in September, well after the predicted Silver Hill start date of April.

Cllr Gottlieb said: "The only viable solution going forwards from where we are today is for the council to buy the existing surgery and progress the new one, regardless of what happens to the Silver Hill proposals.

"The council is attached to the idea that the new surgery can only be built if Silver Hill goes ahead, but this is an idea that’s doomed to failure and, in the process, this important city centre medical facility which wants to expand rather than reduce its service is being put at risk."

Cllr Gottlieb, himself a property developer, claims rebuilding the surgery would take up to nine months.

Developer TH Real Estate had planned to replace St Clements before starting work on shops and homes because the new centre has to open immediately after the Tanner Street site closes.

Doctors have long been frustrated by delays to the relocation, first discussed more than a decade ago. Many rooms in the 1970s building are less than half the size required by modern NHS standards.

Answering Cllr Gottlieb's claims, council corporate director Steve Tilbury told a meeting earlier this month: "A new surgery can't be developed as a separate project because the business case doesn't take into account that without the development of Silver Hill, there's no buyer for the doctors surgery and therefore there's nobody to move them along."

Seeking a new deal would further delay the move, he added.

"We can't be certain, as I understand things, that the NHS would sanction the new surgery [if a new buyer is sought] – it will cost significantly more in rent."

However, Mr Tilbury said in 2011 there could be "significant private interest" in building the surgery.

In a report on the scheme, written before TH Real Estate agreed to take on the redevelopment, he said: "Because the NHS will pay for a fair market rent for premises and provides an excellent covenant there could be significant private interest in the development of a new surgery building."

St Clements was unavailable for comment.