Crucible (St Andrews) Limited, the development company behind plans which will provide the town with an M&S Simply Food store and a 65-bedroom Premier Inn Hotel, has announced work is expected to commence on site in October.

The two new buildings are expected to be ready for completion at the same time, with an estimated opening date in late June 2015.

Brian Robinson, Crucible (St Andrews) Ltd development director, said: “This is very good news indeed and we are delighted to share this with the people of St Andrews at last. We are aware that the public will naturally have been getting restless and wondering when they were going to see work begin with the eyesore buildings at the site at the moment finally removed and demolished.

“We can reassure them that we are as keen as them to see the site cleared and ready for construction and we are now only a few weeks away from a real hive of activity beginning which will deliver this new development to the town, creating around 80 full and part time jobs in the process.”

Mr Robinson explained that, following receipt of planning permissions at the start of the year, Crucible (St Andrews) had agreed its Section 75 Agreement with Fife Council and had dealt with the planning conditions set by the authority. The firm had now obtained a building warrant to enable it to get on-site to start building work.

“There is a great deal of pre-construction preparatory work which has to be done in cases like this, before construction can start, and it does take time,” he said.

“We also had to finalise the detailed design of the new development and agree the final internal layouts with both Premier Inn and Marks and Spencer. There were necessary site investigations to carry out too, to ensure there was and is no contamination on the site.

“We have formalised our building contract to enable us to progress and we have obtained a licence for the hotel element of the development.

“Everything is all in order now and we have completed these vital steps as quickly as was possible. We plan to keep the public fully updated as work commences.”

The Premier Inn Hotel which forms part of the development will feature a first for Scotland – a bespoke and secure golf club store.