KEYS to Nelson's Yarnspinners Wharf were officially handed over to Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust yesterday so that work can begin on a new health centre in the town.

The grade two listed Victorian warehouse on the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal will soon be given a new lease of life after British Waterways announced it has let the building on a 125-year lease to the trust.

The Primary Care Trust believes the existing Nelson Health Centre, in Leeds Road, is overcrowded and its design does not meet the current and future needs of the community.

After considerable public consultation and approval by the council, it has now been accepted by the Primary Care Trust, GPs and other health staff who work there that Yarnspinners Wharf should be the site for the new health centre. It offers a practical and cost-effective option for providing better health services for the people of Nelson.

David Peat, chief executive of the PCT, said: "The PCT is delighted to be using the Yarnspinners Wharf site as a base for the redevelopment and re-provision of primary health facilities for Nelson. It presents the ability to re-use, adapt and extend a historic site and to give a new lease of life to this important location in Nelson. We appreciate the assistance given by British Waterways and anticipate that this relationship will continue throughout this exciting scheme." The three-storey warehouse was originally used to store all types of general merchandise being moved along the canal, from cotton and wool to food and machinery.

It then became a wool storage warehouse in the 1950s for an adjacent woollen mill, which stood on the site of the current Morrisons store.

A few years ago British Waterways restored the building while retaining many of its original features.

Alan Carter, surveyor for British Waterways Leeds and Liverpool, said: "I am delighted that we have at last found a tenant for Yarnspinners Wharf. The warehouse is a fine example of Victorian industrial architecture, which deserves to get a new lease of life in modern day Nelson.

"The heritage building is an important link with the town's prosperous past when the canal provided a vital means of transport and communication."