Work to transform a South Staffordshire community centre into a brand new GP surgery and mini-clinic is to begin on December 2, it was revealed today.

The £500,000 development in Hobnock Road, Essington, will be home to three GPs and serve more than 2,500 patients when it opens next year. Minor surgery, x-rays and vaccination services will all be available there. The development follows a four-year campaign by villagers who have previously had to travel as far as Walsall to see a GP.

District and parish councillor David Clifft, chairman of Essington Health Liaison Group, said today: “This will become an absolutely essential service for the village.

“At the moment we have people going to roughly 32 different doctors strewn across South Staffordshire and the West Midlands, and that’s not good enough.

“This will give them a well-equipped, modern clinic on their doorstep. There’s been a slight delay since the idea was initially mooted but that has been because the initial funding was for just £150,000.

“With the extra money this will become a first rate health centre capable of dealing with far more than just a regular GP practice.”

He added he hoped that if the surgery, next door to the village’s main community centre, proved popular it could be extended to a second storey within five years.

A survey is also set to be launched to coincide with the new opening which will attempt to address health issues in the area and find out what people wanted from a local surgery.

Councillor Clifft added: “People in Essington die on average 10 years younger than in the rest of South Staffordshire and we need to find out what is causing that.”

It is hoped the community centre’s transformation, which is being funded by the primary care trust, will be completed by March.