SIX hundred new jobs will be created when Worcester City Football Club’s new stadium is built.

The jobs will be available once office facilities built alongside the Nunnery Way stadium are completed.

Leisure facilities, possibly a health and fitness centre, will also be available to Worcester residents when the complex is built.

John Dodds, Midlands regional director for developers St Modwen, said: “We have been working closely with the football club to draw up a scheme that reflects the club and the city’s long term ambition to achieve football league status for Worcester. The new stadium will be the centrepiece of a development which will include complementary leisure and office facilities which create up to 600 new jobs.

“This scheme reinforces our commitment to continued investment in Worcester in times of economic uncertainty.”

A spokesman for St Mowden, which owns the Nunnery Way site, said the number of jobs reflected the size of the office space being included in the development, although it is too early to say what firms would be interested in the development.

An exhibition of the planned development will be held for the public on Tuesday, October 21, between 3pm and 8pm at the Whitehouse Hotel in Foregate Street, Worcester.

It will feature plans for the Nunnery Way site and include information on the proposed residential redevelopment of St George’s Lane.

MP for Worcester Mike Foster said the project was exciting for the city.

“Clearly what a project like that does so close to the motorway is become an attraction for anyone looking to re-locate very easily to a brand new site and that is good for our economy,” he said.

The Chamber of Commerce Herefordshire and Worcestershire also welcomed the news.

Chris Harvey, head of policy, said: “Despite all the gloom that is around us there are a number of businesses that are still trading reasonably well.

“We have to look to the future and there are still people who have ideas and are looking for somewhere to get their business off the ground.”

A planning application for the stadium will be submitted at the end of the month and will then be subject to a further consultation process led by Worcester City Council.