Completion of a long-awaited £10 million community health centre will be six weeks behind schedule, due to the unusually wet winter.

Building work on the state-of-the-art facility in Church Field Road, Sudbury – which will be one of the biggest of its kind in Suffolk – is now expected to be finished by September 15.

Local health services currently operating out of the soon-to-be redundant Walnuttree and St Leonards hospitals will not be up and running in the new centre until mid October.

When it opens, there will be nine different organisations providing services in the building, including Siam GP surgery, which is moving from its current location in the town centre.

The range of services will include paediatrics, dermatology, audiology, gynaecology, rheumatology, and speech and language therapy.

Detailed plans for the transfer of services are being drawn up by a specially-formed transition group to bring all the key providers together from their current position of operating in four separate locations.

To avoid any confusion about what is being offered at the centre, a leaflet will be created informing local people about NHS services that are specific to the Sudbury area.

At a Sudbury Town Council meeting this week, Mark Marshall from NHS Property services told councillors that despite the delay, he was happy with the way things were progressing.

He added: “I visited the site last week and I am pleased with the speed at which it is now progressing. The walls and corridors are in and it is taking shape.

“After being involved with this project for so long, it is very gratifying to see it finally coming together.

“It will be quite a landmark building from a design point of view and will sit well in its surroundings.”

Changes have been made to the car park design and talks with bus companies are ongoing with a view to securing regular bus services to and from Sudbury town centre and Great Cornard.

In line with other community health centres in Suffolk, car parking will be free.

Electric charging units have been installed in the car park on a ‘pay as you go’ basis, while people with electric bikes can have free use of the specially installed charging units.