PLANS have been submitted to Stoke-on-Trent City Council for a £14 million health centre on land off Elder Road in Cobridge.

The new complex will bring three GP practices together and offer a range of additional health services from diagnostic testing, physiotherapy, health visiting and health care for asylum seekers.

The three-story unit is due to open in the summer of 2011, four years after health officials went out to consultation on whether to site it there or on Festival Park, Etruria.

The building's look has won plaudits from community architects Urban Vision North Staffordshire.

Dr Darren Price from the organisation said: "It has the potential to become a development of real quality and a significant part of the regeneration of Cobridge."

Graham Urwin, chief executive of NHS Stoke-on-Trent said: "These plans have been produced with considerable input from the local community and key stakeholders.

"The vast majority of comments we have received have been very positive."

Funded under a private-public partnership, the centre will become the new home of Apsley House surgery in Waterloo Road, Dr Parikh's Sneyd Surgery and Dr Pathak's Waterloo Surgery.

But it will also have clinics for thousands of outpatients who are currently seen at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire to ease congestion there.