THE former Swindon College car park will be closed tonight as demolition of the building starts.

The work is due to start later this month and once cleared, the Regent Circus site will be used for a six-screen cinema, a supermarket and eight restaurants.

The car park will be used to house the demolition equipment so will be closed to members of the public from tonight onwards.

A spokesman for Ashfield Land, which acquired the site in 2006, said it hoped the work would be a catalyst to help regenerate the area.

He said: “We bought the site outright which enabled the college to relocate to its new campus at New Star.

“The demolition contractors are taking control of the site and preparing it but we cannot blow it up because it is in a residential area so it has to be taken down bit by bit.

“The demolition will be complete by the end of the summer and the new build will start in the early autumn and we are looking at an opening date of 2014.”