MALVERN patients could be using a state-of-the-art doctors' surgery by next summer.

The Avenue Road Surgery should be able to move to its new premises in Townsend Way in July 2005 after developer Prime UK completes a ten-month build likely to start in August.

Leighton Chumbley, development director of Worcester-based Prime, said he was delighted the building now has planning permission and funding.

South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust finally secured funds for Townsend Way and two other surgeries in the area at a meeting last week.

The countdown to work starting on new surgeries for Upton-upon-Severn and Pickersleigh Road, Malvern has also begun.

Speaking this week, Malvern Hills District Council leader Tom Wells said patients in Upton could have a new surgery by the early part of 2006.

"Planning officers are confident that the remaining issue of car parking provision can be quickly resolved and planning permission can be granted," he said.

He said it was anticipated the contract for building the surgery would soon be put out to tender and work could begin early next year. Andrea Oliver, practice manager, said it had not had written confirmation of the funding and did not want to comment.

Plans for the move of both Malvern Health Centre and Court Road Surgery to a council-owned site in Pickersleigh Road are progressing.

The council is negotiating the sale of the land, which currently houses MHDC's Pickersleigh Road depot, to the Primary Care Trust.

McAlpines, the trust's chosen contractor, was on site last week assessing demolition costs.

Before selling the land, the council must complete decontamination work on the site, a former gas works with a tar pit, and conduct further studies on items like utility service provision.

A new site in Pendragon Close has now been found for the depot but the council still has to get planning consent to build there. It has not committed itself to a timetable for a planning application.

The council struck a deal with the Primary Care Trust agreeing to sell the Pickersleigh Road site last summer, on the condition the trust affirmed its commitment to providing a new hospital for Malvern at the Seaford Court in Malvern Link.