Latest on £1bn town regeration

STOCKPORT Council has revealed completion dates for large parts of its £1bn regeneration of the town centre.

Bosses at the town hall say the five-year investment programme will create 5,000 new jobs and bring 1,100 new homes. Among the developments is the £145m Stockport Exchange commercial scheme - next to the train station - that will create 300,000sq ft of office space.

Phase two has almost been completed with a 50,000sq ft office building including a Sainsbury’s on the ground floor.

The council say ‘advanced negotiations’ are underway for 25 per cent of the space and a 115-room Holiday Inn Express hotel will open opposite the office before Christmas.

Redrock Stockport, the £45m leisure development between Princes Street and the M60, is set to be finished in November 2017.

It will contain a multiscreen Light Cinema, which the council estimates will pull in 400,000 visitors annually, and restaurants including Zizzi, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and others that are in negotiations.

The 145,000sq ft industrial park in Cheadle Heath called Aurora Stockport will be finished in June or July next year.

The council says investment will be made in the Market Place and Underbanks area as well as Merseyway, which was bought earlier this year.

Phase one of the Town Centre Access Plan - to improve travel across Stockport centre - will be completed next year, including the widening of St Mary’s Way.

A second phase, containing a major revamp for Stockport bus station, is scheduled to end in 2020.

It is expected that the A6 to Manchester Airport Relief Road will be open to traffic in autumn 2017.

Subject to planning permission phase two of the Hopes Carr/Covent Garden residential development will also begin next year.

That will lead to a total of around 200 new homes at the site with the council looking at other brownfield sites form further housing developments.