Construction on the new Broadmarsh bus station, car park and library in Nottingham is officially under way.
Workers will set about placing foundations over the next five weeks before the steel work of the structures is put up over the course of the next 10 months.
The start signals the next big milestone in the £250 million project to transform the Broadmarsh area of the city.
The leader of Nottingham City Council, councillor David Mellen, understands why people had been sceptical about the scheme, following years of false dawns over the regeneration of the intu Broadmarsh shopping centre.
But with work under way he said we were now ‘beyond that’.
Speaking today at the official starting ceremony, he said: “For a long time, people have said ‘will it happen’, and it’s taken longer than it should have done, but we’re subject to market forces.
“Now the old car park - which was irreparable - has been knocked down and we’re now at the stage of officially starting construction, I hope people will start to believe that this is going to happen.
“It’s been a long time coming, but it’s something that is key to the regeneration of the city.
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“There’s £250 million being invested in this. That’s a huge amount of money but it’s needed for the economy of Nottingham and this part of the city in particular.”
David Williams is the deputy chairman of local enterprise partnership D2N2, which is funding much of the project.
He said the economic benefits of the investment were already being seen.
When asked about whether he understood why some people had been skeptical that it would ever happen, he said: “That’s been true forever for big projects. I’m sure even with the Colosseum people thought it would never be finished, but we’ve got to go through the short-term pain to get to the end game.”
“Sometimes we have to go with your guts, (in terms of deciding what to invest in), and sometimes you go with evidence. All the evidence suggests that this will act as a stimulus for the city.
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“If you look around you, you can see that stimulus already, with the castle, and the new college building.”
Steve Merrin is in charge of the project for contractors Galliford Try. He said already, £5 million had been committed to be spent with local companies, helping improve Nottingham’s economy.
The firm expects to be finished in 77 weeks’ time, which would mean an end date of mid January 2021.