WORK to demolish a dilapidated shopping parade and replace it with a bold new development could begin later this year.

Plans to replace Weston Lane parade in Southampton with 70 homes, a library and a supermarket will go before councillors tomorrow.

If they approve it, city council planners are likely to grant permission next month, meaning demolition work can get under way this summer.

The once-thriving 1960s shopping parade is now largely empty and has been described as an “eyesore” by residents. Most of the flats in Somborne House and Ashton House, which form part of the development, have been boarded up after the residents moved out.

Redeveloping the site has been a long-term goal for city council chiefs in Southampton, and French company Bouygues Development carried out two years of planning before handing in a planning application earlier this year.

In the plans, 40 houses and 30 flats, including up to 32 affordable homes, would be created with their own parking spaces.

There would also be a library, a community hub, an expanded Co-op store and two other retail units, which could house a hot food retail store and a post office. The council will put £600,000 of funding towards the project, but Bouygues has not yet revealed the full cost of the development.

The city council’s planning panel will consider the plans at its meeting tomorrow at the Civic Centre. If they approve it and final permission is granted next month, demolition work could begin in August and is likely to take 13 weeks.

The development is then expected to be completed by autumn 2015.

Speaking to the Daily Echo after the plans were submitted in April, Woolston councillor and Cabinet member for housing Warwick Payne said: “What made the case for redevelopment starker was the collapse of the walkways in Kingsclere Close three years ago.

"If we can deliver a good rebuild in the shopping parade I think it will improve the whole area.”