THE first 16 homes on a flagship £16m council estate regeneration project in Southampton will be unveiled tomorrow.

Four one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom flats for affordable rent and five new shops, including a new Co-op, will officially opened at Hinkler Place in Thornhill.

The 1960s shopping and housing precinct in Hinkler Parade was demolished to make way for the new development renamed Prospect Place.

A further eight flats and 19 houses for rent will be completed by next summer. A total of 107 new homes and a community centre are planned.

Council leader Cllr Royston Smith said: “Hinkler Place is our first major scheme to transform council estates across the city in decades, and will provide more good quality homes and facilities for residents and local jobs and training opportunities.”

“We have worked very closely with the local community to ensure that they had a real voice in the work that was being done.

“In this respect Hinkler Place is an exemplary scheme, setting the bench mark as to how we must consult with the local community when we seek to transform and improve their communities.”

Southampton City Council has been working alongside the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), the Thornhill Plus You regeneration scheme and the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH), a group of councils, to deliver the development, which is being built by Barratt Homes in partnership with the First Wessex housing association.

Cllr Sean Woodward, chairman of PUSH which provided nearly £3m of funding through Government grants, said: “The development has given a real lift to the area and will provide the catalyst for many more improvements in the future.”

HCA area manager Bruce Voss, who had been a key man behind the project while working for the council and secured a £3m HCA investment, said: “Local people can see the difference that our investment and the efforts of partners has made to the area.”

Planning permission was granted in February last year.

Seventeen shops – many of which were boarded up – and 22 flats, and a five-storey block of 16 flats in Marston Road were demolished last spring.