Suffolk’s health service bosses are set to move into the county council headquarters at Endeavour House – a decade after there was an outcry over their move to Rushbrook House in the Suffolk countryside.

The East and West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Groups are expected to move to Ipswich during the second half of next year after officers from Mid Suffolk and Babergh have moved into the county council’s headquarters.

As part of the reshuffle of office space at Endeavour House staff from Concertus – the former county council architects’ department – will move to new offices nearby in Princes’ Street.

That will help to consolidate the Princes’s Street area of the town, which is now the home of Archant in Suffolk, as the principal business area in Ipswich.

Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance Richard Smith said: “I am pleased to announce that our public sector partners at the Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG and West Suffolk CCG have expressed an interest in co-locating staff with the council at our Ipswich offices, moving out of their Rushbrook House office in Bramford.

“A smaller number of West Suffolk CCG staff will continue to work from Western Way (in Bury St Edmunds), which has worked well for the past 18 months.”

Mr Smith said officers from the CCGs were working with county officials to prepare for the move.

When NHS Suffolk, as it was then called, moved to Rushbrook House in 2006 there was a public outcry because of the cost of renting the offices – and because staff could only reach the offices in a rural part of Bramford outside Ipswich by car or by a long walk along rural roads.

Now administrative staff will join other public sector administrators at Endeavour House at the centre of what has become a “public sector campus” in the heart of Ipswich with easy access to bus and train links.

Amanda Lyes from the NHS in Suffolk said: “Although these plans are at an early stage, a move to Endeavour House represents an opportunity to further develop closer working between the CCGs and our public sector partners.

“Both this and more effective use of resources will support our work towards our aim to make health and care for local people seamless.”