Tranent Health Centre re-opened its doors last week, with patients keen to get a glimpse of its new extension.

The practice, located on Loch Road, opened on Monday after several months’ building work, which has seen the extension added to allow for three new GP consulting rooms, one nurse consulting room and a nurse treatment room.

Work began on the £1.5 million development last April, and comes at the end of a five-year plan to extend the centre.

Proposals were put forward in 2009 for a portable extension, but they were abandoned two years later when the NHS opted for a permanent measure, and the opening of the two-storey extension.

With the addition of new houses in the town, and more in the pipeline, the health centre has struggled to cope with the demand from the increased population.

The internal refurbishments are, though, still ongoing, but it is expected that they will be completed within the next month.

Tranent and Elphinstone Community Council chairman Colin Martin was pleased with the new extension, and was looking forward to seeing the fully-refurbished medical centre later this summer.

Of the new extension, he said: “I think the growth of the number of people in Tranent in the last decade has proved the centre wasn’t coping, so the extension can only be a good thing.” Mr Martin was also pleased that the building works for the extension had caused little disruption to the town.

He added: “The traffic disruption has been minimal, which is what we were told by Morrison Construction, so that has been good.”