AN APPLICATION has been submitted to finally bring Exeter Community Centre into the 21st century.

The centre, in St David's Hill, plans to get a modern café, part-time doctors' surgery and hot desks for small businesses.

The centre was saved for the community in a last-minute reprieve earlier this year when residents secured £1.2 million in Government funding.

If the bid had failed, Devon County Council was planning to sell the Grade II-listed building on the open market.

Now a planning application has been registered with Exeter City Council to improve the building, which is on several different levels.

If given the go-ahead, the centre will close next month or in November and reopen next September.

It is to be run by the Exeter Community Centre Trust.

Christine Fraser, one of the trustees, said: "The idea is to re-style the community centre to make it really attractive for those using it.

"If we get planning permissions you will be able to see from the street, right through to the café and to the community garden beyond.

"Also on the ground floor, there will be a part-time doctors' surgery — at the moment there is no doctors' surgery in St David's."

The community centre will also be home to St David's Pre-School with the youngsters having an extended sheltered play area.

There will also be a space to provide indoor sports facilities for martial arts groups, fencing and table tennis.

Room for theatre rehearsals and storage has also been included along with a hot desk business suite.

The trustees are aiming for the refurbished centre to be green in its outlook.

Mrs Fraser said: "The café will be serving food which has been locally produced — the surplus from what has been grown on local allotments.

"We are thinking of the café as being a 'green' stop on the Exeter Green Circle which passes the centre's front door."

Exeter College will continue to lease spaces for arts classes when needed and the TUC offices will remain.

The trustees regret the centre will have to close when the building work is being done, said Mrs Fraser.

The £1.2 million is part grant and part loan and, together with funding from the county council, brings the total to £1.4 million for the refurbishment and regeneration of the centre.

Negotiations on the centre's future lasted five years.

Last year the county council agreed to gift the building to the community's new trust provided it could raise the necessary funding to bring the building back into full use.