A proposed new cinema that is due to be carved out of the Buttermarket centre is on schedule to open by the summer of next year.

Buttermarket managers Cornerstone expect work to build Vue cinema to start during the summer– and to take about 12 months to complete.

A spokesman for Cornerstone said its architects and engineers were currently working out details of the proposed changes before going out to tender in April.

One of the main issues still to be resolved is the future of the TK Maxx store on the first floor of the centre.

This is due to be demolished in the reshaping of the centre – leaving an open area above the entrance with new restaurants and cafes on either side of the first floor.

TK Maxx has been offered the opportunity to move into what was the ground floor of TJ Hughes, a similar sized space, but this deal has not yet been signed.

Cornerstone remains hopeful the deal will be completed but it is understood that TK Maxx may be looking at other options, including the possibility of moving to a new larger site in the rival Tower Ramparts centre.

Planning permission for the conversion of the Buttermarket centre was granted in September. The £7 million project would create a nine-screen cinema which in turn would provide 100 new jobs.

The Cornerstone spokesman said: “There is nothing to see at the centre yet, but there is an awful lot of working going on behind the scenes which is vital before the tenders are published.

“We’d always planned to be open by summer of 2014, and we are still very much on schedule for that.”