WORK has begun on a £12.5 million project to build Yate's new community health centre.

Construction of a temporary base for the town's West Walk GP practice heralds the start of work on the long-awaited facility.

The temporary building, being put up in the town's leisure centre car park, will provide a short stay home for the GP practice.

Work is then due to start in April on the permanent health centre, to be built on the site of the existing practice.

The three-storey health centre, expected to be complete by autumn 2009, will be more than three times the size of the current surgery.

It will provide all existing GP services plus an integrated children's centre, new outpatient department and diagnostic tests.

The centre will also provide a minor injuries service that will avoid patient referral to hospital for conditions which GPs and other health professionals can deal with on site.

It is expected to save around 34,000 people in South Gloucestershire having to travel to hospital.

Approval of a full business case for the scheme by the South West Strategic Health Authority signalled the start of building work last week.

Penny Harris, chief executive of the South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust, said: "We have now crossed the last hurdle and work is now starting on the new community health and integrated children's centre.

"This facility is crucial to our plans and will radically improve and modernise health services for the people of Yate."

Martin Wilkes, managing partner at West Walk Surgery, added: "We are proud to be part of this exciting development and the move to temporary premises in April means that it is now definitely happening.

"We will be able offer so many extra services, which are currently only hospital-based at present, right in the centre of the Yate community.

"This building has been a long time coming for the people of Yate and the patients of West Walk and their staff."

Council staff at the children's centre will work with their health colleagues and will be able to offer advice and provide a wide range of services that are locally accessible for the people in Yate.

Northavon MP Steve Webb said: "This is an important step forward to providing the modern healthcare facilities that the residents of Yate and the surrounding area deserve.

"It is good to see that a scheme that has been in preparation for a long time is now nearing fruition."

The new centre is part of a major shake-up in health care in South Gloucestershire that sees Frenchay Hospital downgraded to a community hospital and Southmead turned into the area's major specialist hospital.