Canterbury City Council is optimistic that the first elements of the long-awaited Kingsmead redevelopment will be complete by the end of the decade.

The plans - which include a cinema, shops, restaurants, homes and student accommodation - represent the most significant urban renewal project in the city for two decades.

Developer Link City has produced a new impression of what the Canterbury Riverside scheme will look like when built.

It has been carrying out work on the 23-acre site to test the condition and composition of the land on which the former Serco depot and coach park sat.

The developer has reduced the number of student flats on the site from 700 to 500 after local concerns about the scale of the development.

But it still wants to fulfill the other elements of the scheme which were first proposed two years ago.

Caroline Hicks, the council's head of business and regeneration, forecasts that the first of the new buildings will be ready by 2019 or 2020.

"This is the last big development site and it's a key site," she said.

"Link City are very keen to get on and do it as this is their flagship development and they have been working on it for years."

Kingsmead has long been regarded as one of the least attractive areas of the city and its redevelopment will mark the biggest urban transformation scheme seen in Canterbury since the 1990s.

It will contain a mix of restaurants and shops, although no occupants have yet been confirmed.

Due to modifications in the proposals, the city council is likely to receive a reduced figure for the land and has drawn up a new development agreement with Link City.

The new agreement will go before the council's policy resources committee which meets in the Guildhall at 7pm on Wednesday, April 12.