NORTH Yorkshire entrepreneur Simon Boak has finalised plans for a new conference centre - and hopes councillors will approve it in March.

Mr Boak, who runs the Events Office, in Pickering, was granted outline permission in September last year to build the facility on the A169 outside the town.

Now final plans had been pulled together, he said, and a detailed application was due to be submitted to Ryedale District Council within two weeks.

"We hope that it's going to be determined as soon as possible," he said. "That would enable us to start building on April 1 and be completed by the end of September. We already have one or two people interested in using it from October onwards."

The conference centre would be used for a wide range of exhibitions and events, said Mr Boak.

But he stressed that the Events Office and Malton architect Mark Bramhall, who had drawn up the detailed proposal, were keen to keep the facility accessible.

"We hope to make it available for local people to use as well," he said. "We will be able to partition some of it off to make a smaller space to use."

One of the facility's attractions would be the vast amount of outdoor space adjacent to the site, he said. "We have as much exhibition space as somewhere like Sheffield Arena," he said. "But then we have the outside space as well and that helps us to compete."

A back projection screen is planned for the centre, providing additional audio and visual display space for exhibitors.

Mr Boak said the east wall of the building, which looked on to the A169, would be glass, so that passers-by would be able to see into the space.

Part of the gently curved roof will be covered in grass to minimise the impact of the building on the surrounding open countryside, he added.

Updated: 09:57 Thursday, January 23, 2003