Casino planned for station site

And other space in the listed building has been earmarked for a restaurant and function suite, offices and staff rooms. The scheme has been unveiled by the company behind the £35 million redevelopment of the 9.5-acre site.

A five-storey 88-bedroom hotel, 208 flats, a car showroom and pub-restaurant, together with 460 parking spaces, are being built on the remainder of the site off Wednesfield Road and Sun Street.

The long-awaited station rescue project also involves work on completing the broad gauge track display and restoring the footbridge.

But the proposal strays from the originally approved planning application for the site by earmarking areas of the building's forecourt for parking instead of open space.

The latest phase of the major regeneration scheme for the long-redundant site is spelled out in a report to go to Tuesday's meeting of council planning bosses.

It reveals that the casino, gym and restaurant would be capable of handling up to 850 customers, and that about 50 part-time jobs on any one working shift would be created.

Both the inside and outside of the remaining station and partly dismantled platform buildings would be refurbished and altered to meet their transformation needs.

The committee will be recommended to give the Helical Retail application delegated consent, subject to a number of conditions being met.

They include hours of opening for the casino and a strict limit on the number of customers allowed into the venues at any one time.

The station, which stood on the Great Western rail network, closed to passenger services in 1964, 110 years after it was built. Its use as a parcels depot ended in 1981.

By Barry Hammond