Two new health centres in east Oxford have been given the go-ahead after health managers finalised a £40m deal to finance the projects.

Work on the sites in Manzil Way, off Cowley Road, and Dunnock Way, in Blackbird Leys, will begin early next year after Oxford City NHS Primary Care Trust signed a contract with the Infracare Consortium to fund the scheme.

As reported in the late edition of yesterday's Oxford Mail, the arrangement will also include another super-surgery at a city centre location, which -- although provisionally earmarked for the Radcliffe Infirmary in Woodstock Road -- has yet to be decided.

GPs welcomed the news that the project had been settled, signalling the beginning of a project to provide one-stop health centres replacing outdated surgeries.

Dr Peter von Eichstorff, of East Oxford Health Centre, in Manzil Way, said: "This is great news for patients and our GP practices. We have been working in overcrowded or unsuitable buildings for many years. We're hopeful that these schemes will provide the buildings we desperately need now and for the future."

The site in Manzil Way will provide a base for GP surgeries, a dental practice, a community nursing unit, social services, physiotherapy, a pharmacy, key worker housing and a community cafe.

Doctors will move to Raglan House, in Temple Cowley, until the new buildings are ready in September 2006.

The work in Blackbird Leys is scheduled to start in February and be completed by January 2006. The new centre will house the GP practice in Blackbird Leys Road, along with a range of other community health services and a children's day nursery.

The contract between the PCT and Infracare Consortium is part of the Government's Local Improvement Finance Trust scheme, known as Lift, which works in a similar way to the Private Finance Initiatives to build new hospitals.

The PCT will pay rent to the consortium for 25 years, before the building is handed over to the NHS. Critics claim the rent payments will take priority over patient services.

PCT chief executive Andrea Young said: "This is an important milestone in the first phase of developing our local health and social care services.

"Lift provides us with an opportunity to build high quality premises we would not otherwise be able to afford."