MORE than 1,000 jobs could be created by Winchester's multi-million pound Station Approach development.

This was the claim from Rob Turner, associate director at Grant Thornton, who calculated the economic benefits the scheme could bring.

He said 500 workers would be needed for construction and 500 would be created by the shops and offices.

Mr Turner also suggested that £30 million would be pumped into the local economy each year.

"This data is based on the assumptions at this early stage," he admitted.

"It has been gathered from information which have of similar developments."

However, this comes just a month after its validity was called into question as the Overview and Scrutiny Committee said the design competition was not conducted properly.

It saw three of the five shortlisted architects drop out, leaving just Design Engine from Winchester and Hopkins Architects from London.

Their designs were judged by a jury of experts which included architects, urban designers, engineers and councillors.

City councillors at Cabinet ignored calls from the opposition by officially appointing bidder B, believed to be Hopkins, as the designer.

But this did not please Michael Carden, vice chairman of the City of Winchester Trust, who called for the scheme to be halted: "A judicious pause now would be a great deal safer than ploughing ahead with a flawed process that is almost bound to lead to further and greater problems.

"The scheme could then be change to introduce both traffic and architectural improvements."

This view was shared by Cllr Matin Tod, who recently said: "We are pushing ourselves back into Silver Hill hell."

However, others are backing the proposals, saying they are in need of more office space.

Paul Marsland, partner at Lane Clark and Peacock, who have had premises in the city for 25 years, said: "We love being in the city, but need more space. "We want to keep growing but the lack of available space in Winchester is making it harder to want to stay here. We may be forced to move.

"Time is of the essence and I think we need to go ahead with the scheme."

Cabinet voted unanimously to proceed with 'bidder B'.