This Friday marks a year since an agreement was signed outlining commitment to the multimillion-pound regeneration of Sittingbourne.

At the time council leader Cllr Andrew Bowles (Con) said the deal between Swale and the Spirit of Sittingbourne Consortium was “the biggest step taken so far towards rejuvenating the town”.

He also added that he anticipated work would start this year on phase one, which includes a cinema, associated restaurants and a hotel being built on The Forum car park site.

Fast forward 12-months and the town is still waiting.

No planning applications have been put forward and none are pending.

The News Extra also revealed in April this year that Tesco’s regeneration arm, Spenhill, had pulled the plug on its £110m plans to build an Extra store at Milton Creek, expand The Forum, which it owns, and construct a bridge linking the sites. The announcement came after the chain revealed it had suffered its biggest ever fall in profits.

Yet the local authority insisted its ambitious plans would still go-ahead.

Labour leader Cllr Mike Haywood has described the lack of progress as “woefully slow”. He said: “We back the regeneration of the town centre but the failure to provide anything after 10 years is a reflection of the lack of imagination from the council about the approach to this.

“They’ve just relied on Tesco for all these years thinking they’re the magic wand, and of course they pulled out.

“Things have also changed with the economy and where does that leave us?

“The feeling is they’ve had a one track approach to this. It’s deeply frustrating. They’ve lost the public’s confidence.

“They announced and re-announced the initiative so many times that people have given up believing it’s going to happen.”

Cllr Mike Gosgrove (Con), cabinet member for regeneration, insists work has been going on behind the scenes.

He said: “We signed an agreement with Spirit of Sittingbourne to help us achieve our long-term objective to regenerate the town centre through high-quality planning, design and architecture.

“From then on a great deal of work has taken place to help develop the masterplan that will form the basis for the development to progress.

“Until that plan is in place and planning applications have been submitted and approved there is not going to be much to see in the immediate location, because getting that right is so important.”