THE first steps have been taken towards a much called for redevelopment of the former British Sugar site in Kidderminster.

Council chiefs are to meet Government paymasters to see if a study can be carried out to look at how much it would cost to clean up the Stourport Road site.

Features of the old factory - which closed in 2002 - such as underground tanks, would need to be removed for the 60-acre site to be re-let.

Leader of Wyre Forest District Council, Howard Martin, said redevelopment was a crucial priority for the district and could create up to 2,000 jobs with light industrial use.

Mr Martin said the forthcoming June 3 meeting with Advantage West Midlands - a Government body set up to aid economic regeneration - was a vital step.

He said: "It is the biggest, vacant, industrial brownfield site in Wyre Forest and it is paramount to get something done in that area.

"We have been working on it for a long time, we have been trying very hard to get to this stage and now we have got the meeting which I am quite hopeful about."

The re-letting of the site would enhance the argument for a relief road for Stourport and raise the prospect of a new road connecting the site to neighbouring A449 Worcester Road, he added.

Most of all, redevelopment would vindicate the council's vocal opposition to a mooted incinerator for the site, thrown out in 2002.

He said: "Thank God the incinerator hasn't gone on there because it would have been un-marketable.

"The decision was the right one for the local community and development of that site."