AN ambitious multi-million pound plan to turn the birthplace of the famous Stourbridge Lion steam engine into a new state-of-the-art health centre is back on the cards, the News can reveal.

A proposal by site owners Quadrant Land Partnership and Stourbridge’s Worcester Street Surgery to turn the derelict old Foster & Rastricks building - where the legendary locomotive was built - into one of the biggest one-stop-shop medical centres in the UK was turned down in February this year.

But after spending six months re-working the details of the £7.5m scheme - the partners have now resubmitted their application to create The Lion Medical Centre to Dudley Council planners.

Stourbridge councillor Les Jones, Dudley’s cabinet member for regeneration, said: “The Worcester Street Surgery is bursting at the seems, so it’s a positive move - it’s just a matter of the detail.

“There are those that think it should be a museum - but we have limited resources, there’s a recession on - and we have to think very, very hard about what we can afford.

“I would like to see that building brought into use and I see a doctor’s surgery as a positive community use for a historically important building.”

If the plan gets the green light this time round - the dilapidated grade II listed former foundry off Lowndes Road would be turned into a 30,000 sq ft GP surgery housing 72 staff, 41 treatment consulting/treatment rooms and a full range of primary care services such as acute care, chronic disease management and nursing services - plus a lecture theatre and seminar rooms - and more than 100 parking spaces.

Originally registered with the council in November last year - the plans were refused due to technical issues over parking spaces and the entrance to the building.

But the developers and doctors believe this time they have got the scheme right.

The Foster & Rastricks building - where the Stourbridge Lion steam engine was built before it became the first locomotive to run on a commercial line in the United States in 1829 - has lain empty since 2003.

The plan to turn it into a brand new medical centre is part of Quadrant’s future £100m masterplan to redevelop the north side of Stourbridge - turning around 40 acres of canal-side land into 800 or so new homes.