THE wraps have been taken off three new health centres as part of a massive scheme to bring East Lancashire's rundown complexes into the 21st century.

Nelson, Bacup and Darwen will be the first areas to benefit from the LIFT project, private/public sector link-up between developers and health trusts across the area.

Health chiefs have chosen Bamber Bridge-based developers Eric Wright Group as their partner and £65million will be invested in the next five to seven years in transforming and building new health centres.

In the next phase Burnley, Blackburn, Clitheroe and West and East Accrington are being lined up for improvements and health chiefs hope the prospect of working in 21st century facilities will help attract more GPs and health workers.

Chairman of the LIFT project and chief executive of Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust, David Peat said: "We're delighted to welcome the Eric Wright Group to be our private partner in this ground breaking public/private partnership which is set to transform primary care and community health facilities across East Lancashire.

"My colleagues and I have been impressed by the group's understanding of our community and their ability to engage with it as we move forward together. We look forward to the benefits that this exciting partnership will bring to primary and community health care in East Lancashire in the coming years."

The partnership will see a separate limited company set up in September which will have its own board and make its own decisions about future investment.

Director with the Eric Wright Group, Mike Collier, said they were excited at the link-up and hoped East Lancashire could be a standard-bearer for the rest of the country.

He said: "We will be one of the first areas to and we want the rest of the country to look at East Lancashire and say 'that's the way we should be doing it'."

He said regeneration was at the heart of the group's philosophy and hoped that not only would the schemes help revive communities but they would encourage others to invest in them as well.

Chief executive of Blackburn with Darwen PCT, Vivien Aspey, said the LIFT scheme offered a chance to breath new life into the area's facilties and attract new workers.

She said: "This is a very important opportunity for us to get much needed investment into local health buildings and premises which will benefit the people of East Lancashire.

"By offering suitable premises, with minimal financial risk, we are also likely to attract more GPs and other health professionals to work in East Lancashire.

"We will be able to offer significantly better facilities, we will also be able to develop new patterns of care based on closer working relationships between health and other services contributing to health such as social services."