A practice facing closure over council plans to demolish a much-needed nearby carpark will continue thanks to a community battle waged by its patients.

The John Street Medical Centre, based south of Hobart, has been running for 50 years but its future has been under threat since the local council revealed it wanted to turn the nearby carpark into a pedestrian walkway.

Practice manager Deborah Ward said that for the past four years the council had refused to sell to the practice the portion of the carpark used by its patients.

Without the adjacent spaces, she said the practice itself had just 14 parking slots to share between doctors, nurses and patients.