A MEDICAL centre plan looks set to go ahead, despite worries over a lack of parking for the thousands of patients who could be treated there.

Arthur Sanctuary House practice’s patients would be treated in an single storey extension at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and would be expected to use public transport to get to there.

If that is too much hassle they have been told they can drive there and expect gridlock in the JR’s car parks.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) routinely warns patients and visitors to expect to spend up to an hour driving around to find a space at the hospital.

The surgery would treat some of the former Marston Medical Centre's 5,500 patients after it moved and was split across two sites in June.

Other patients are treated at Marston Pharmacy in Old Marston Road, after it opened in July.

Five Liberal Democrat Oxford city councillors have demanded the plans be looked at again after they raised fears about overdevelopment at the site and a lack of parking.

Planning bosses on the local authority have urged councillors to approve the proposal and said the site is ‘highly accessible’ by public transport.

Lib Dem leader on Oxford City Council, Andrew Gant, said: "Clearly there are huge issue with parking and access to the site.

"This has the potential to make things worse. There does not appear to be adequate information for [the plan]."

OUH offered to accommodate Arthur Sanctuary House after the surgery’s operators, Hedena Health, said there was no alternative but to locate there.

Despite patients flooding the Oxford Mail’s website with complaints when the news of the relocation broke earlier this year, just three official objections were lodged by residents with Oxford City Council.

They said they were worried about the impact of traffic at the site and the extension's design.

Hedena Health serves about 23,000 patients at five surgeries around Oxford.

A travel plan has been included in the application, which states the OUH present travel and transport policy would apply there.

In July, Hedena Health’s Justin Avery said: “We are also frustrated about the lack of parking availability but it’s a choice between finding premises or not. It’s the only one we could get at short notice.

“I appreciate the concerns and I am sorry we have not been able to find a place with real parking but it was that or close the practice.”

Traffic problems would be mitigated because ‘many patients are employees at the John Radcliffe and are already situated on the site, reducing traffic movements’, an Oxford City Council planning document claims.

Last month the Oxford Mail revealed there were 459,900 visits to the JR's car parks from July 2016 to July 2017.

From those, 973 parking fines were issued, pulling in £24,325 for OUH.

The plan will be looked at by Oxford City Council's east area planning committee on Wednesday from 6pm at Oxford Town Hall.