Wigan is to benefit from a £45m regeneration project aimed at transforming the town into an exciting leisure and tourism destination.

The Wigan Pier Quarter redevelopment will include five improvement schemes, the largest of which involves the complete refurbishment of the grade II listed Trencherfield Mill.

Attractions will include a new heritage-themed venue to sit alongside the Trencherfield Mill Steam Engine; a new performance site – destined to become home to the Wigan International Jazz Festival; a hotel, a restaurant and a bar.

Other improvements in the quarter – which surrounds the basin of the Leeds-Liverpool canal – will be carried out at Eckersley Mills; Pottery Road; two small sites owned by British Waterways and Wigan heritage centre The Way We Were.

The project is being lead by Wigan Council, Wigan Leisure and Cultural Trust (WLCT) and British Waterways, with grant aid from the European Regional Development Fund, the Heritage Lottery, the North West Development Agency and the Regeneration Fund.

Councillor Brian Baldwin, Wigan Council’s cabinet member for culture, said: “Wigan is shedding the outdated, stereotyped image that has persisted for generations and it’s largely thanks to exciting regeneration projects such as this one.”

WLCT’s tourism development manager, Keith Bergman, added: “These projects will significantly boost Wigan’s tourism industry, which already brings in £260m a year.”

Salford-based developer Nuttalls has started work on the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2007. Details: www.wlct.org