PRESTON'S bustling shopping scene is to get a new retail centre.

Work is under way on the new shopping centre in Mount Street, off Friargate, Preston, on the site of an old engineering works.

Richard Kenworthy, company secretary for Warden Builders Ltd, the Preston-based firm building the centre, said: "It's not going to be a food shop. It should be retail shops and a cafe -- a two storey retail arcade.

"The ground floor is going to have eight units. Then half of the top floor will be a cafe and half will be four more units."

Mr Kenworthy could not confirm which companies had signed up to move into the new centre but added: "There has been a lot of interest so far."

Phil Davis, assistant director of planning for Preston Borough Council, praised the development which comes as the town battles for city status.

Mr Davis said: "It is a very strong design, and will add a new dimension to Preston town centre. It indicates that there is a focus in the town for developments from across Lancashire."

Other developments in Preston include a new Collingwood Housing Association development on the site of the former market wholesalers in Bow Lane which was destroyed by a fire more than a year ago.

Central councillor Carl Crompton said: "Any development in the town centre is a good idea regardless of where it is as long as it brings in revenue and shoppers.

"Some may think that the new retail centre will make the Fishergate end of town a little top-heavy, but the town centre stretches right from the prison to the railway and any improvement has got to be good."

Councillor John Swindells, also for Central, added: "I think it would make the town centre somewhat top-heavy, but hopefully this will be evened out once the Tithebarn area has been redeveloped."