A ROW over who will build Winchester's £100m city centre redevelopment looks likely to continue, despite city bosses being close to signing the crucial deal.

The dispute flared on the back of a last minute request by a second developer to be considered for the Broadway/Friarsgate redevelopment.

The city council's preferred option is London-based Thornfield Properties. The focus of the plan is for 350 new homes, 41 shops and a new bus station.

However rivals London and Henley (Winchester) say they are frustrated at being locked out of the deal.

The company, which owns the Brook Shopping Centre and the Kings Walk precinct, claims it can do the job quicker and cheaper than Thornfield but that city council has refused to listen. London and Henley claims since the city council went into an exclusivity deal with Thornfield in 1998, no other company has been able to submit alternative plans.

London and Henley held a meeting at the start of November with the authority to show them their ideas, but their scheme was rejected.

Now the company is submitting a detailed planning application for the first part of the redevelopment in February.

Nigel Wright, director, said: "Why will the council not talk to us when we have such a significant stake in the land? How do they know that we can't do a better job than Thornfield? It won't give us the chance to show our plans in detail?

"We will put in the expenditure on our plans to prove we can complete the development."

Robin Cooper, the council's director of development services, said: "We have listened to London and Henley's presentation to the council, and it has been given careful consideration, but our decision was to firmly reject their advances and go ahead with Thornfield's plans.

"We believe that Thornfield will deliver what the council and the people of Winchester want from the site, and that they are best equipped to complete the project.