WORK is under way to prepare for a redevelopment aimed at breathing new life into a former pit community.

The first pickaxe fell yesterday on a site which is to undergo a multi-million pound transformation in coming months in the centre of Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside.

It will involve moving the town library and five retail units, in Mautland Square, to be replaced by a £4.8m North Eastern Co-op store.

The 21,500sq ft complex, which will have 120 car parking spaces, will provide a wider range of shopping for local people, and create 130 jobs when it opens in two years.

Contractors begin building work for the new library and retail units on Monday, December 4. They will go up on the site of the former junior and infants school, on the corner of Newbottle Street and Station Road, which has remained undeveloped in recent years since the demolition of the school buildings.

Newcastle architects and planning consultants Coulson Swinburne Moses has prepared plans for the library, adjoining small shops, a caf and bank, as well as for the supermarket.

The library development, which includes provision for 100 parking spaces, will feature a glazed atrium, an escalator, an information technology area and a community reading room.

The shops will form part of the ground floor of the building, and should be ready by September next year.

Sunderland council leader Colin Anderson said the development would underpin existing shopping in Houghton, which is overcoming the closure of its colliery, in 1981.

"We hope this will help to put Houghton on the up and up.

"We want to renew the good feeling in this area and re-establish Newbottle Street, the main shopping street, as a major centre for the whole area.

"We have been trying for four or five years to get a development like this. It will help to make Houghton more attractive and assist other shops in the area."

North-Eastern Co-op chairman Terry Morton said the society welcomed the chance to be involved in such a regeneration scheme.