Bristol City Council's Cabinet has approved plans for £28 million of infrastructure works at the site of the proposed Bristol Arena.

The project will take place on Arena Island and the surrounding area, including the demolition of a derelict former sorting office near Temple Meads station.

The planned Bristol Arena is a new 12,000 capacity stadium and will be located on the former diesel depot site.

The council will now work with Bouygues UK to agree a final package of works and target cost for the project prior to awarding a building contract.

Works include a new public plaza linking the new building with the proposed Arena Island development, improvements to the cycle and walkway from the Arena Island site to the Three Lamps Junction on the Bath Road and site infrastructure works.

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In addition, Bristol Mayor George Ferguson has revealed 65% of the build workforce will come from the region, with at least a third of that coming from within the city itself.

Other features of the jobs and skills package that will form part of the build contract includes:

• 40% of external expenditure delivered through small and medium size enterprises

• 48 apprentices

• 40 work placements

• 4,000 person weeks of training and almost 2,000 pupil interactions with local schools

Mayor Ferguson said: "I can announce, that following a tendering process, the Preferred Tenderer to build the arena, locally based, Bouygues UK, will as part of their contract, commit to ensuring local people and small and medium sized enterprises are engaged in the building of the arena."

Further feasibilty work is required for the potential relocation of 200 temporary spaces from future development land at Arena Island to a site at 1-9 Bath Road.

The work would include the viability of car parking, numbers of spaces that could be provided, payback period, costs, heights of buildings, operator acceptability and how it would relate to the road network.

Plans for the Bristol Arena and Arena Island are due for consideration by planning committee on 02 March.

(LM)