The new look Stanhope Estate should be completed by 2012

About 400 flats on the Stanhope Estate in Ashford are due to be demolished and replaced, while the 80-acre site will be extensively re-landscaped.

The scheme ran into trouble earlier this year when the council dumped its business partners.

The plans for the estate, built in the 1960s, are on show until Saturday at the Parish Rooms in Stanhope.

The architect's plans for the estate are on display until Saturday

Architects are on hand to explain and discuss scale models and artists' impressions of the scheme.

Comments from the public will be taken into account before outline planning permission is sought later this month.

Two blocks of flats were demolished a year ago in preparation for the scheme, but work was then stopped after the borough council lost confidence in the consortium running the project.

Waste ground has stood in their place, while other residents have continued to live in their flats.

'Immense interest'

Councillor Ian Cooling, of Ashford Borough Council, said a bidding process would now decide who would replace the previous private finance partners.

"We've had an immense amount of interest, and I know we will get very good bidders coming out of that process," he said.

People living on the estate will be offered alternative accommodation when work on the scheme gets under way.

The council's new architect, HTA Architects, expects the revamped estate to be completed by 2012.