PARTS of Sunderland city centre look awful, so news of a deal to help drive forward its biggest ever regeneration is to be welcomed.

The closure of the Vaux Brewery in 1999 left a massive gap – and a horribly visible eyesore – that has plagued the city ever since.

When the bulldozers razed the building that once made Double Maxim – a North-East brew which predates Newcastle Brown Ale

by more than 20 years – it would have seemed inconceivable to anyone in the town that more than a decade later the 26 acre site would still be a wasteland.

Would any other city in the UK have neglected such a visible scar of such size and strategic importance for so long?

News yesterday that Carillion has won the deal to help transform parts of the city led me to have a quick trawl through The Northern Echo archive to look at the myriad attempts to breath live into the former brewery land and beyond.

The Vaux site has seen a succession of false dawns, missed opportunities, artist’s impressions of swanky-looking developments that came to nothing, and ownership wrangles. The land was in Tesco’s hands for 10 years before the supermarket sold it for £22m - £20m of which came from the city council's development partner Homes and Communities Agency, while One North East and the city council stumped up £1m each.

The new joint venture company formed between Carillion and Sunderland City Council, will lead £100million of development over the next eight years.

It would appear that things are finally starting to move across the city. Roads are being improved, funding has been approved for the long-awaited new road bridge over the Wear, and there are plans for a smart new public square and a business park.

News last week that the Government had chosen to build a Digital Catapult Centre in Sunderland to hothouse the UK’s best digital ideas was a coup for the city and showed that Wearside’s future isn’t wholly dependent on it being one of Europe’s most vibrant car-making centres.

The award earlier this year of a City Deal which will help to unlock infrastructure projects and create jobs builds on the success of Sunderland’s car industry and is a tribute to the workers in the region who are exporting models right across Europe, ministers said.

Smartening up the city and finally sorting out the former brewery site will be another huge step in the right direction. If this one proves to be yet another false dawn then it will leave a very bitter taste in the mouth.

Follow me on Twitter @bizecho