THIS is the first image of Bolton’s new health and leisure centre — a multi-million pound home of excellence planned for the town.

The £30.6 million scheme is just one in a long list of projects earmarked for the coming months and years.

As the New Year starts, civic and business leaders are looking forward to an exciting era for Bolton, with shopping, leisure and housing developments all in the pipeline — and all are set to bring increased prosperity, despite the country entering recession.

As the credit crunch bites, developers and civic leaders have underlined their commitment to a range of projects from a new education campus to a travel interchange, creating a business quarter, an urban village and the huge Church Wharf development.

Keith Davies, the town’s head of regeneration, said: “These are really exciting developments which will create 16,000 new jobs over a 10-year timescale.

“We’re a city in-waiting — I never correct people who call us a city — and the ambition is to have people from Bolton educated and trained to take advantage of the jobs these developments will create.

“There’s a real wish from us all to get cracking.”