The next phase of a major town centre revamp is on the way, with efforts to create “the playground of the Tees Valley”.

Council chiefs are expanding their vision to Teesdale Business Park, and may change proposals for the demolition of Splash and a £15m leisure hub, library and register office as they “take stock” of their plans. Ideas for the £40m Stockton town centre overhaul also include refurbishing the council HQ into accommodation to encourage town centre living for young professionals, a care and health innovation zone and proposals to be drawn up for the town hall and The Shambles.

The Northern Echo: A visualisation of what the Stockton town centre urban park might look like

Leaders are set to agree the next stages of the huge Stockton Waterfront project as demolition of the former Castlegate Shopping Centre continues. Work on the NHS community diagnostics centre is also expected to start soon as the council has just handed over the site to the NHS which is leasing it, and the council says significant investors have shown interest in the area.

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“There’s some exciting times ahead for Stockton,” said the council’s chief executive Mike Greene. “The progress is unbelievable really.

The Northern Echo: A visualisation of what the Stockton town centre urban park might look like

“We’ve been on a real journey. We need to be stepping in and providing that vision of leadership. We’ve got a couple of key catalyst projects which are pretty remarkable, that are going to see some really big physical changes.

“We’ve started to see a lot of interest from external investors. It’s created an environment in my view where there are some significant opportunities to distinctly change the economy in Stockton and build on growth.

The Northern Echo: A visualisation of what the Stockton town centre urban park might look like

“There’s a real opportunity to get inward investment and use that private sector interest to take the area forward further. We’re now thinking about the next decade and what we do in terms of moving all of our six towns forward.”

With much of Castlegate now demolished, he said footfall had increased 10% in Wellington Square where 31 businesses had moved: “Stockton was something like three times the national average in terms of vacancies in our town centre. We’re at the national average now.

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“It’s going at a rapid pace and you can see the vibrancy it’s bringing. You’ll have a transformational public realm space which has increased interest in what’s going on in Stockton town centre, it opens it up.”

The Northern Echo: A visualisation of what the Stockton town centre urban park might look like

Iain Robinson, assistant director of town centres development, said: “The demolition’s progressing well. That’ll be complete by the end of October. There’s a quarter of a shopping centre left there but certainly throughout the course of the year it’s really going to change visibly over there.”

He said it paved the way for delivering the urban park, with Riverside Road to be narrowed to two lanes and taken under a bridge: “You’re suddenly creating a much wider riverside, you can have a lot more activity, more pleasant space and quieter, better air quality, less traffic.

“The park’s really going to bring Teesdale right into the heart of the town.”

The Northern Echo: A visualisation of what the Stockton town centre urban park might look like

Mr Greene said they now needed to link the town centre transformation to Teesdale, with hopes to work with partners to come up with a new strategy for that area and a “care and health innovation zone”.

He said: “The centrepiece of the river is so important. You start to see where Teesdale, a major employment site, is crucial to the town centre.

“It opens up the Teesdale area to the town centre and that’s where the future vision needs to be,” he said, linking physical regeneration with jobs, innovation and investment from homegrown and international businesses.

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“Stockton, our borough, can very much be the playground of the Tees Valley where people can live and prosper and enjoy the lifestyle offer. The urban park is one aspect of that.

The Northern Echo: A visualisation of what the Stockton town centre urban park might look like

“It’s the place where we’ve got all the brilliant assets – the Globe, the Georgian, the Arc, the river, brilliant places to live. What we think we need to do next is look at some of these key development zones and look at working with people like the universities and the NHS to look at sustainable employment opportunities on the back of it, and use some of these regeneration sites to do that.

“Now’s the time to take stock and start to knit some of that together in the future vision, thinking about the area as the heart of the Tees.

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“It feels like we’re at the vanguard of a really exciting period for a number of the towns. It is a huge asset, we just need to sell it more.”

The Northern Echo: Chief executive Mike Greene and Cllr Nigel Cooke of Stockton Council in front of the demolition of

Councillor Nigel Cooke, cabinet member for regeneration, said: “You can just see it opening up. It’s great that you can see the High Street from Teesdale. There’s a lot of good developments on Teesdale but there’s parts that, I don’t mind saying, just weren’t finished.

“People have been asking questions for a long time, ‘what are you going to do with that?’ It’s really important that we do that now.”