An incredible 25,000 homes and 20,000 jobs are to be created in Peterborough between now and 2021, according to the masterplan drawn up to guide the city's exciting development.

The figures have been laid down in the Integrated Growth Strategy, commissioned by the urban regeneration company, Opportunity Peterborough, which has spelt out the areas where it wants people to be living and working over the course of the next decade.

Key parts of the vision are the creation of two new urban extensions – one on a swathe of land between the A15 and the A1(M) containing 5,000 homes and named Great Haddon – and a second of 1,000 homes, called Norwood, on land to the north east of the city.

Read more from our feature:
Future Peterborough: Regeneration special in association with Opportunity Peterborough - peterboroughtoday.co.uk/futurepeterborough.
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The city centre will be home to another 5,000 houses while five neighbourhood centres – Bretton, Hampton, Millfield, Orton and Werrington – will take a total of 4,000 homes. The house building programme is being undertaken in anticipation of a population growth of around 48,000 by 2026 and which in turn will need the creation of 24,600 jobs on 80 hectares of land, which is being set aside specifically for employment purposes.

Within the parameters set by the strategy are some highly exciting and colourful individual schemes for which plans are already in the pipeline.

A key role in the transformation of Peterborough's city centre will be played by the planned multi-million pound North Westgate development.

Details of this £450 million venture were unveiled at a special ceremony in Peterborough last October.

The outline planning application contained enough paperwork to fill several boxes and eight months on Peterborough City Council planners are only just approaching the time when they can put the scheme before the planning committee.

Chief executive of Peterborough City Council, Gillian Beasley, said: "The North Westgate development is a £450 million regeneration scheme that will herald a new era for Peterborough in terms of shopping and leisure facilities and will bring huge benefits to the city.

"As with any application of this scale, we undertook an extensive public consultation exercise and have received lots of constructive comments throughout this process.

"The planning team are currently considering all the responses received as part of the normal planning process so they can bring a report to the planning committee."

And business leaders are still calculating the immense benefits of the proposals which will transform the city into a 24-hour-a-day operation with quality shops, homes and top range leisure facilities, from restaurants, bars and cinema to open spaces.

It also features the creation of a transport terminal with the bus depot moved closer to the rail station and a facelift for the surrounding area that will transform the first glimpse of Peterborough for thousands of visitors.

Some 3,000 jobs will be created during the construction phase with a further 3,000 to be created afterwards.

The plans – which have been devised by the Queensgate Limited Partnership, which owns the Queensgate shopping centre – involve the creation of 60 new shops, a new Marks and Spencer store of about 170,000sq ft, 12 incubator units for smaller and start-up businesses and more than 100 one and two-bedroom residential units, made up of private and affordable housing.

The number of car parking spaces will be increased from 2,300 to 3,300 with the replacement of the existing Queensgate car parks by two new multi-storey car parks.

An important feature of the scheme is integrating it into the city centre to allow easy access to the centre and a high quality urban design, architecture and public art to improve the quality of public open spaces.

Chief executive of Peterborough Chamber of Commerce John Bridge said: "This is a great expression of confidence in the Peterborough economy.

"An investment of £450 million in the city shows that people are absolutely certain that the growth and development the city is trying to achieve will become a reality."

Head of projects at Opportunity Peterborough Steve Bowyer said: "This will have a catalytic impact on the regeneration of the city.

"It will make other people confident about investing in Peterborough. It will shift the whole profile of the city."