Telford Town Centre Southwater regeneration is launched

A £250 MILLION scheme to revitalise Telford - bringing shops, bars, cafes and hundreds of homes to the town centre - will create more than 2,000 jobs over the next 15 years, it was revealed today.

And a further 600 to 700 construction jobs will also be on offer as work to transform the Southwater area of the town centre gets under way in earnest in December.

News of the jobs bonanza came as Telford & Wrekin Council and partners The Southwater Events Group and the Homes and Communities Agency today unveiled details of the proposals at a launch at the authority's civic offices.

The HCA is contributing £9.5 million towards the £250 million investment, £100 million of which has already been secured.

Included in the revamp of the site between the Telford International Centre (TIC) and Telford Shopping Centre will be 30,000sq ft of office space, a new learning and media centre to bolster the library, two new hotels and bars, restaurants, cafes and shops.

There will also be a leisure hub with space for a swimming pool or water park and multi-screen cinema. A total of 330 apartments and town houses are also to be built as part of the scheme.

A new council headquarters is also to be built in Southwater, with Asda taking over the former civic headquarters site and building a new supermarket.

David Sidaway, head of property and design at the council, said 2,000 jobs would be created over the life of the project.

Council leader Councillor Andrew Eade told today's launch that a public-private sector partnership was the driving force behind the scheme and it was "the single most important thing to happen to Telford in the last 30 years".

By Simon Hardy