A £2.6million chunk of public money has been set aside to make sure the redevelopment of Barons Quay goes ahead.

Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) agreed to move the money to the scheme’s budget at its meeting on Thursday.

Council bosses also announced that more detailed plans will be submitted by October and that both a funder and anchor tenants will be sought after September.

Clr Les Ford, deputy leader and excecutive member for resources, said: “We decided to proceed to an outline plan, which we’ve now done, and we decided that at this point it would be judicious to take it somewhat further to hybrid planning application, seeking a lead occupant for our main source of the site and we want to get the director of resources to progress the scheme so that we can appoint a funder.

“We think this will give us the maximum opportunity to ensure this process moves forward and moves forward under our control.”

A hybrid planning application is a mixture of outline plans and full plans, setting out proposals in much more detail.

Clr Herbert Manley, executive member for prosperity, seconded the motion and said: “This is the moment we all wanted to see coming.

“Development in Northwich has been waiting for many years and this is one way of moving forward.

“The council here is supporting economic develpoment in this area and by putting this money forward we will bring a far larger sum, around £100million, into the Northwich area to sustain what we want to do, to promote growth and ensure our communities are dealt with in the right and proper way.”

Clr Malcolm Byram said the Barons Quay project dovetailed well with other plans in the pipeline.

“This scheme can be well backed up by the planning permission granted the other night for Wincham Urban Village, which will tack in nicely to this and feed into town,” he said.