Plans for a new multi-million pound health centre in Didcot have collapsed.

Now GPs at the surgery in Britwell Road have just six months to find a new home before their funding window expires next April.

Plans for an alternative site are being drawn up but it will mean building on recreation land in the town.

The surgery, which looks after 16,500 patients, has been described by GPs as unsafe and intolerable because the building is rundown and too small to cope with the town's growing population. Doctors had hoped to redevelop the existing site by buying the neighbouring ambulance station, but after two years of talks that plan has been shelved because of disagreements over the land value.

New regulations say trusts must sell property for the historical value shown in their accounts and, in the case of Didcot ambulance station, that is twice the market value.

Doctors described the change as an 'absurd trap', but pleas to the NHS at the highest level have fallen on deaf ears.

A statement released by GPs this week said: "We are all bitterly disappointed that this wonderful opportunity will be lost and remain anxious about our ability to maintain the standards of care reasonably expected by all our patients and the reforming NHS.

It continued: "We must redevelop as the current situation is unsafe and intolerable."

Plans are hurriedly being drawn up to build a new centre on the Smallbone Recreation Ground, also in Britwell Road, which is owned by the town council. Doctors are appealing to residents to support the scheme.

A planning application will be submitted to South Oxfordshire District Council. If the project gets the green light, building work could start next summer and the health centre could be operational by spring 2007.