WORK is set to get under way on a new £2.5 million medical centre.

Construction of the new health care centre on Glanrafon Road, Mold, is due to start in the spring following the completion of a planning agreement.

Two existing GP surgeries in Mold, The Grosvenor Street Practice and The Bradley Practice, will relocate to the new two-storey building and together the practices will offer services to more than 8,000 patients.

The building will include consulting and treatment rooms, a minor operations room and a multi-function room suitable for large group meetings and clinics.

Access to the health centre will be via the New Street car park but the building will also have its own 35 car parking spaces and a patient drop-off layby.

A decision to approve the medical centre was made by Flintshire Council in July last year, subject to a series of conditions in a planning agreement which has now been signed.

Funding for the development will come from Apollo Medical Partners, which will carry out construction and then lease the premises to the GPs.

Richard Drew, development director for Apollo Medical Partners, said he was hoping to start work on the building in March or April.

“The project should take about a year to complete and should be open in 2012,” he said. “About five years ago the local health board put out a number of sites where they wanted development. We were successful in getting about five or six sites across North Wales and have already completed one in Rhyl.”

Vanessa Peters, practice manager at the Bradley Practice, said the surgery was pleased the application had been approved.

She said: “We’ll be able to offer a higher level of service because we’ll have more consultation rooms.”

Mold councillor Haydyn Bateman added: “It’s smashing news that it’s all set to go.”

A spokesman for the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board said: “The new centre would be in a central location in Mold, with the two practices benefiting from moving into a modern building which is specifically designed for GP services, meets the latest standards for disability access and provides the space and facilities for the practices to expand their services in response to population growth in the area.”