WORK on the long-awaited £70m Bicester town centre redevelopment will start in January.

Building work on a 50,000 sq ft Sainsbury’s supermarket, a seven-screen cinema, car parking and six shops and restaurants should be complete by the end of 2011.

A new civic building, which will house the library and Cherwell District Council’s offices, is likely to be built afterwards by the local authority.

Norman Bolster, executive member for economic development and estates, said Bicester was bucking the current economic climate.

He said: “This has been a long time coming but we’re now about to see this exciting project get under way.

“It’s reassuring for Bicester that Sainsbury’s, Stockdale Land and the district council have been able to work together to bring this exciting development forward.”

Phase one of the construction work will see the River Bure diverted from the east of Manorsfield Road to the west.

The area by the river will be landscaped, a footpath and cycleway created on the west side of the road, and a roundabout built near the entrance to Hanover Gardens.

Initial work, which will also include moving cables under the road and creating a new bus station, is expected to take about nine months.

Phase two – building the three-storey shopping and leisure centre across Crown Walk and Bure Place car parks – is due to start next autumn and be finished by Christmas the following year.

More than 800 construction and retail jobs are expected to be created.

Jamie Cowen, Sainsbury’s head of property development, said: “This exciting project has been a long-term objective for Sainsbury’s and we are now hopeful of being able to start work early in the new year.

“We are excited about the contribution the development will make to the success of Bicester town centre and look forward to delivering new facilities for the benefit of the local community.”

Planning permission for the development, which was first mooted in 2004, has already been granted, but layout changes have been made to the original plan.

Sainsbury’s submitted a revised planning application which will be heard by the district planning committee in the new year although phase one will still go ahead.

Changes include putting the cinema in the centre of the development rather than at Franklins Yard car park, with the civic building built there instead.