AS the wraps come off the designs today for three new health centres for East Lancashire -- part of a £65million plan to upgrade and build even more in our region over the next five to seven years -- much more than improvement in facilities was being unveiled.

For though the new health centres at Darwen, Nelson and Bacup, costing a total of £26million, are welcome developments which will greatly benefit each town individually, it was the overall plan's far-seeing investment in the future of the region's primary and community health care that was also being displayed today.

One of the problems confronting health-care providers in East Lancashire in recent years has been the high number of family doctors reaching or approaching retirement age and the difficulty of enticing new GPs to the region.

Several positive steps have been taken to redress the situation, but this massive move to renew our health centre provision -- driven by a ground-breaking partnership between developers and health trusts across the area -- promises to attract more GPs and other health professionals to the region.

And in addition to securing better and increased care at primary level, the new health centres stand to be key factors in the regeneration of the East Lancashire community generally -- as visible evidence to outside investors that our region has huge faith in its future.