Opening date for shopping centre

Bristol's newest shopping centre will open in three months' time, despite various problems during construction.

Cabot Circus is due to open its doors on 25 September and developers are confident they can meet the deadline.

Robin Dobson, of the Bristol Alliance Project, said: "It marks three years of hard work by so many people. We are on track, on time and on budget."

The £500m shopping centre's name was chosen following consultation with local people.

As part of the development a bus lane is being created on the M32 which runs into the city outskirts.

Motorway widened

Preparation work is under way with a temporary extra lane created on Newfoundland Way linking the motorway end and the city centre.

Newfoundland Way will be resurfaced as part of the works that will take place over the summer and during school holidays in order to minimise disruption to traffic.

"We are phasing in the work to provide extra capacity for when Cabot Circus opens and for the busy Christmas/New Year trading period this year," said councillor Mark Bradshaw of Bristol City Council and representative at the West of England Partnership.

The funding for this work is part of the £70m recently announced to improve the bus network within the West of England sub region.

The changes include bus priority measures, real-time information displays that tell you when the next bus is due and new bus shelters with raised kerbs and CCTV.

The second part of the motorway works on the M32 bus lane will be coordinated by the Highways Agency and is likely to start after the January sales in Feb/March next year (2009).

At that stage the additional lane on Newfoundland Way will become a bus lane and an additional lane will be created on the M32 for buses and coaches.