People in Westbury could find out in the next two weeks whether a new £5m primary care centre will be built in the town.

Westbury Group Practice had hoped to buy the site of a former garage and petrol station next to Eastleigh Surgery in Station Road, Westbury, but these plans were scuppered when it was sold to another buyer last June.

The centre will provide accommodation for eight GPs, nurses and their support staff and provide room for the Neighbourhood Nursing Team covering Westbury and Warminster.

It will also include space for health visitors and community midwives who will provide antenatal and postnatal care.

A ‘docking station’ for a mobile diagnostic centre for tests such as MRI scans and breast screening is also planned.

Debbie Riddiford, practice manager at the Eastleigh Surgery which is funding part of the project, said the group practice is now in negotiations with new sites.

She said: “We have been in negotiations with a number of sites in Westbury and are still very much pushing for a primary care development in the town.”

She said a statement could be made in the next two weeks with regards to a location of the new centre.

Sharan White, NHS Wiltshire’s primary care contracts manager, said: “NHS Wiltshire continues to support the Westbury group practice in their primary care development.

“The practice is in ongoing negotiations regarding an alternative site and the plans for facilities at the practice have not changed since the first proposal.”

During a meeting at Westbury Town Council meeting at The Laverton earlier this month, councillors rejected Cllr Russell Hawker’s motion to set up a Health Services Working Group, which would have been responsible for obtaining all relevant facts and points of view about key health issues in the town.

At the same meeting Cllr Bill Braid put forward a motion on the same subject which requested the town council should not discuss the primary care centre development at this time because, he said: “Uninformed debate can serve no useful purpose and may jeopardise delicate negotiations (between the surgery and potential sites).” Cllr Braid’s motion was also rejected by councillors.