TWO restaurants could be signed up to the council's flagship town centre regeneration scheme by the end of the year following 'very positive conversations'.

The £130 million Time Square project is planned to officially open in early 2020.

It will feature a Cineworld multiplex cinema, permanent market hall, council offices and a public square.

It is being developed by Warrington & Co, on behalf of the council, with development partner Muse.

However, concerns have been raised over no restaurants being signed up to the scheme.

But during Tuesday's supporting the local economy policy committee meeting, Steve Park, managing director of Warrington & Co, confirmed significant progress has been made.

He said: "We are on programme from a construction point of view, the budget is still on plan as well.

"We have been to what is called Completely Retail, which is the leisure industry conference, there are two per year.

"The last one was in September.

"We have had a very positive conference – we have had a number of meetings with restaurant operators, the groups, very positive conversations.

"We expect to be in deals with them, at least two, by the end of this calendar year, and certainly more come the end of April of next year.

"The condition of the lease that we have with Cineworld is that 85 per cent of the lettable space is let to national chain restaurants.

"The market, as you will know, has been through something of a tumultuous couple of years and you have seen a number of restaurant operators go to the wall."

As well as the two restaurants that could be signed up by the end of this year, the Warrington Guardian understands another two could be signed up by next April.

However, despite the lease condition, Mr Park confirmed there is the opportunity for a number of regional operators to come into the town centre.

He added: "Fundamentally, the cinema operator would like every restaurant to be let because every restaurant that is let equates to footfall in Time Square and footfall in Time Square leads to custom in the cinema.

"So, everybody, none more so than the cinema operator, wants every restaurant to be let, so I don't see that as being an issue for the contractors.

"I think just pure commercial common sense would provide sufficient latitude to allow that to happen."