CONSULTANTS will this week begin drawing up a masterplan to bring 25,000 new jobs and 5,000 new homes to the centre of Southampton by 2026.
Milton Keynes-based town planners David Lock Associates have been hired to come up with a blueprint for how the city will grow over the next 16 years.
They have promised a "robust and visionary document" which will transform Southampton through "walkable streets, new neighbourhoods, renewed public realm, new life and activity and a connected waterfront."
The project, costing up to £200,000, will help guide planning decisions.
The city council’s Cabinet member for economic development, Cllr Royston Smith, said it came in response to developers.
"We just felt we were losing out way a bit and there needed to be a coherent narrative of what we want to achieve in the city," he said
He said it would deliver Southampton’s dream of gaining a worldwide reputation as a waterfront city and show how the city must tackle transport and climate change problems.
The commissioning of a new masterplan comes after the council has spent three years drafting a planning document called the “City Centre Action Plan”, which is still due to go out for public consultation.
The council says the consultants would be paid out of a Government planning grant.
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