A MASSIVE £1 billion masterplan to transform Bolton town centre has been unveiled.

The wide-reaching project is designed to overhaul the character of the town centre and turn a number of grot spots into attractive housing developments.

Bolton Council is planning to put £100 million into the ambitious redevelopment proposals, but it is expected that private sector investment will push the overall value of the scheme to £1 billion.

Town hall chiefs have been working with developers for several months to draw up the masterplan, which includes regeneration plans for sites at all corners of the town centre.

A key aim of the redesigned town centre will be to have a more concentrated shopping area. Council bosses want the retail zone to be focussed on the area stretching from Newport Street down to Knowsley Street, incorporating the Market Place Shopping Centre and Crompton Place.

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The Bolton News understands that talks are ongoing behind the scenes between the council and Crompton Place to improve the retail offer at the centre, which has lost a number of shops to the Market Place in recent months.

Retailers including Clarks, Ernest Jones, and New Look have all recently left Crompton Place, which also lost its flagship BHS store when the chain went into liquidation.

Outside the retail core, the masterplan indicates that most other land in the town centre that is in need of development will be allocated for housing.

Council chiefs say their plans will focus on empty and brownfield sites and will also include a mixture of affordable homes.

Earlier this month, The Bolton News revealed that newly-revived plans for the transformation of Church Wharf were back on the agenda.

That site is expected to be among the first of those earmarked in the masterplan to be redeveloped.

Church Wharf — previously the subject of a £226 million shopping and leisure complex plan — will now have 500 homes built on an area running along the River Croal, between River Street and Bank Street.

Another busy gateway to the town centre — Trinity Street — is also earmarked for development in the plan.

Bolton Council bought the land on which the former Wayne Walker meat store stands after it was advertised for sale last October and want to build a new multi-storey car park in the area.

A new hotel and office block are also part of the ‘Trinity Gateway’ plan.

The council paid around £1.5 million for the site to create the 40,000 Trinity Street project.

A planning application is expected to be submitted during the summer and, subject to approval, work on the car park — which would serve train passengers using Bolton railway station — could start later this year.

It is hoped that a proposed new access road off St Peter's Way to serve the Church Wharf development will help improve traffic flow through the town centre and combat the effects of building hundreds of new homes.

The University of Bolton is still also planning to build a new student village in Cheadle Square, behind Le Mans Crescent.

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Creating new office spaces, in order to meet demand from local businesses, will also be crucial in the reconfiguration of the town centre.

In total, Bolton Council will borrow £100 million over a 50 year period to kick-start different development schemes.

Town hall bosses have reassured residents that taking out the loan will mean that no public services will face cuts as a result of the masterplan scheme.

The loan will be paid back in yearly instalments, made using the annual Manchester Airport dividend — which currently stands at £4.5 million — and a dividend from the Yorkshire Purchasing Company which the council also receives every year.

Other areas within the town centre that form part of the masterplan are expected to be revealed in the coming weeks and months.

Cllr Cliff Morris, the council leader, said : “The masterplan is intended to facilitate the redevelopment and growth of our town.

“We know that town centres have changed due to factors such as the shift to online shopping and this masterplan will reflect that.

“It is very important to us that we are able to fund this robustly and be confident that the money we need will not have to be sourced as a result of cuts — we are very pleased that this will be the case.

“We are speaking to a number of developers about different schemes and this is a complex process which can take a lot of time.

"We are, however, committed to regenerating Bolton town centre and as soon as possible. With the new transport interchange and the investment in electrification, living here if you work in Manchester would be a very good proposition.”

Once details of the masterplan are finalised in coming weeks it will be made public, and a report about the project will be considered by the council’s cabinet for approval.

The masterplan includes land in council ownership and privately-owned land that would need to be purchased, such as buildings in Bank Street that the council is attempting to acquire.