Construction work is now underway on Stroud's brand new medical centre, which will deliver GP services to more than 15,000 patients in town.

The project will create a new £6.5m town centre facility for two of the town's GP practices, Locking Hill Surgery and Stroud Valleys Family Practice, as well as a pharmacy and additional space for a range of other complementary health and service providers.

Both practices have outgrown their current buildings. With the local population set to increase over the next 15 years, the GP partners and NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) identified the need to move to more modern premises.

The extra space in the new building will enable the two practices to extend the range of services they provide, expand training opportunities and support patients with complex needs who require more specialist treatment, as well as being a hub for the local community.

Dr Ewart Lewis, GP partner at Locking Hill Surgery, said: "For many years, lack of space has hindered the services we can offer. Having additional consulting and treatment rooms will allow us to expand our teams, train more GPs and offer a greater range of services to our patients, for example diagnostics, minor surgery, contraception, mental health support, physiotherapy and social prescribing."

Dr Anne Hampton, GP partner at Stroud Valleys Family Practice said: "This development is great news for both our patients and staff. It has been carefully designed to support our more vulnerable patients."

The practices' application to merge was approved by NHS England in August. The merger will help them to offer the full range of additional services. The new practice will be called the Five Valleys Medical Practice.

The new location is very accessible, with 360 parking spaces available in the adjacent Five Valleys Shopping Centre, free of charge to anyone who has an appointment at the surgery.

The development is an integral part of the regeneration of the centre of Stroud being delivered by Yorkshire-based Dransfield Properties, which specialises in town centre developments, rather than just building GP surgeries.

The team from main contractor PDR Construction, also based in Yorkshire, has moved onto site to start work on the refurbishment and partial rebuild of a retail unit on King Street, ready for the new Five Valleys Medical Practice to open in autumn 2022.

A spokesperson for Gloucestershire CCG said PDR was selected by Dransfield after a competitive tender process, which included Gloucestershire-based firms.

Mark Dransfield, managing director of Dransfield Properties, said:

"We are extremely proud of our work in Stroud, and it is great to see work now starting on this fantastic new facility for the community in the heart of the town.

"The new centre will cater for the town's growing population and have space to offer many more additional services to the patients it will serve."

Punchline said: "While the new medical centre is good news for Stroud residents, using Yorkshire-based firms to do the work is a real missed opportunity for the county.

"What a shame they couldn't support the local economy and use a county firm to do the work. We have some excellent Gloucestershire construction companies, who have experience in this sort of work, and use local sub-contractors and local suppliers and hire apprentices from the local area."