A MULTI-million pound transformation of Church Wharf is back on the agenda.

Hundreds of new homes are earmarked for the town centre site, as well as a new link road that Bolton Council says will be key in reducing congestion.

The new housing plans for an area running along the River Croal, between River Street and Bank Street, come a decade after the council first announced its intention to turn the site into a shopping, leisure, and residential complex.

That ambitious £226 million proposal never went ahead, falling victim to the global financial crisis, but a more modest scheme is now in the works.

Bolton Council says it is in talks with a number of developers about the Church Wharf project, although no deals have yet been agreed.

40+ pictures of locations around Church Wharf planned for town centre houses

A bid has also gone in this week asking the government to invest £2 million in an access road to the area, which would come off the A666 and connect River Street to Church Bank via an existing green area.

Stephen Young, the council's director of place, said: "We are speaking to a range of developers, although nothing has been signed yet, and we are looking at putting housing on that site.

"In order to open the site up, we have applied through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) for a link road that would come off the A666.

"It is important to note that this is a brownfield site, as there is pressure in Bolton to build new housing and also to protect the green belt.

"This is a site that was allocated for housing originally and it is a clear and obvious choice for us to improve.

"It has always been our aspiration to use this site for housing. The parameters have changed because the market has changed, but our aspiration to put housing on that site remains as strong as ever."

The unfulfilled Church Wharf plans included a cinema, a 126-bedroom hotel, two multi-storey car parks, and up to 720 apartments.

Since those proposals were shelved, major shopping and leisure development has instead gone ahead at the Market Place Shopping Centre.

Mr Young said that the any new development at Church Wharf — expected to produce 500 homes — will be for "lower density housing and would be more sympathetic to Bolton Parish Church".

The development site would run from the Diamonds lap dancing club in Bank Street, looping back along the river behind the church and adjacent to St Peter's Way.

Cllr Cliff Morris, the council leader, added: "This is the kind of site we have to develop in order to protect our green belt — there are no two ways about it.

"Once this site is up and running with new houses it will regenerate the town centre, so now that we have this opportunity to fund this new road we have to take it."

This week, the GMCA has submitted a bid to claim £45 million from the Department for Transport's National Productivity Investment Fund.

Included in that is a £2 million allocation for an access road to Church Wharf — although this is ranked as the cheapest and least important of 11 schemes across the region.

Should the funding be granted, it is proposed that the council, which describes the project as 'very deliverable', would contribute £750,000 from its town centre regeneration towards the building of the road.

As well as opening up Church Wharf for redevelopment, the bid document states that a link road would also direct traffic away from the congested Bradshawgate.

The 300m-long road, which would run parallel to the A666, could be open by October, 2019.