Plans for the largest regeneration scheme in Wales since Cardiff Bay have been unveiled for a redundant half of Llanwern steelworks in south Wales.

Developers claim the �750m programme would create an entire new suburb of the city of Newport creating 7,000 new jobs.

Cardiff Bay has been a regeneration success story

The plans, which will go before Newport City Council in October, include new housing, a primary school, industrial and commercial buildings and a range of sports and leisure centres.

First details were revealed on Tuesday with the announcement that the owners of the steelworks Corus have agreed the sale of 600 acres of land at Llanwern to a consortium of developers.

Heavy steel making ended at Llanwern in July last year as part of Corus' slimming down of their UK operation.

A total of 1,340 jobs were lost - almost half of the positions to be axed in Wales - while the plant now processes steel manufactured on Teesside.

Now the company has agreed the sale of the redundant land to a consortium led by the Chepstow-based developers Broadhall Hampton which has drawn up the ambitious plans for the site.

Work on clearing the area has already started and is expected to take up to three years although that would not prevent redevelopment starting as early as the New Year.

Clearing of the former steelworks is under way

"The site location presents fantastic opportunities," said Michael Davies, director of Broadhall Hampton.

"With council support and planning approval, our scheme has the potential to create a vibrant eastern suburb in Wales's newest city with unrivalled transport links."

The developers says the �750m needed for the regeneration project will come from institutional and direct investment.

The consortium also includes the house builders Barratt South Wales and AWG Development, the commercial and residential arm of the Anglian Water Group.

A spokesman said it will work closely with the new Newport Urban Regeneration Company which is tasked with driving forward development in Newport.

Although big, this planned development at Newport will be dwarfed by the regeneration masterminded of the old Cardiff docks during the 1990s to create Cardiff Bay, home to the new Welsh Assembly Government.

The bay development has created around 15,000 new jobs and more than 3,500 new homes.

The Welsh Assembly is providing �76m of grant aid to help communities affected by the steel job losses like Newport and the nearby south Wales Valleys town of Ebbw Vale which is having an old rail link to Cardiff reopened.