A multi-million pound health centre to meet the needs of Frome residents for the next half a century could be built by January 2012.

The final piece of the jigsaw to complete the promised health park on the former Frome Cheese Show site has now been revealed.

The new community hospital was opened in June 2008 but at the time plans to build a new health centre next to it were shelved.

Now, following months of discussion and negotiation, a planning application for a new £11 million health centre is to be submitted to Mendip District Council in January.

The new centre will replace the 40-year-old building in Park Road, the Saffron Surgery in Berkley Road and the Fromefield Surgery, a satellite of the Beckington practice.

The Beckington surgery will remain open, as will the operation at Locks Hill, to provide healthcare for families living in the Keyford and The Mount areas of Frome.

The new centre will have a pharmacy, an optician and a dental surgery, and there will be a coffee shop for patients and staff and an in-house gym. It will house more than 30 doctors, there will be a private clinic for visiting consultants, a minor operating suite and an educational suite.

Dr Mark Vose, who has been one of the partners involved in plans for the new health centre, said it would mean more care provided locally.

He said: "We are just not able to operate as we are at the moment, there is not enough space to fulfil our ethos of 'what can be done in Frome should be done in Frome'."

Doctors believe that a state-of-the-art hospital and health centre side by side will also provide a high level of health care which in turn will attract highly-trained health care staff.

The new building will be on two storeys with three pods, part of which will have green sedum roof. The practice has been working with groups such as Sustainable Frome and V4F to produce an ecological building incorporating ground source heating and rainfall recovery systems.

Senior partner Dr Tina Merry described the health park as unique, providing an opportunity to provide healthcare for a growing population for the next 50 years.

The practice is also hoping that a large number of outpatient procedures will be delivered locally and doctors will also be able to introduce more complex work currently only undertaken in hospitals outside Frome. The close proximity between the health centre and the hospital will also benefit patients. Drawings of the centre will be on display in the four health centres and the hospital.