A key town centre site is being listed for sale today.

And Calderdale Council say the sale of Northgate House and the Central Library site will form part of the wider £100m regeneration and investment in Halifax town centre.

The site is today - Friday - being marketed as a cleared site and the authority has secured £1.3m from the Leeds City Region towards demolishing it ahead of major redevelopment.

Ian Gray, director of economy and environment, and James Crawley, corporate project lead, set out the ambitious plans.

Mr Gray said: “This is a big strategic site for us, and a large retail site is one of the biggest things missing in Halifax town centre.

“We have a lot of smaller independent shops but because of the Victorian infrastructure we don’t have the ability to have a big floorspace retail offer.

“We know part of our the retail market goes into Huddersfield, Bradford and Leeds and we want to pull it back by having shops that people want.

“We really want to see an element of good design, it’s got to fit in with what we’ve got around it which is Grade I and Grade II buildings.”

The council believes a cleared 1.4 acre site will be more attractive for developers.

A mini-shopping centre or several large retail units are ideas and the council wants public realm works to link it to the town centre.

Mr Crawley added: “One of the challenges is people spend their money elsewhere in other towns, this will help mitigate that leakage and make us more competitive.”

Asked whether how the cash offer would balance against the design idea, Mr Gray said: “I think our finance people will say the bid is paramount, but equally what does it do for our town?

“Local authorities are part funded by business rates so an increase in rates is good for us.”

He said there are wider plans to develop the residential offer in the town centre, with redundant sites key to the plan.

Clr Scott Benton, deputy leader, said: “We are confident that improvements in the economy and selling the site cleared of buildings will help attract more developers to take it forward. We have very few larger retailers in the town centre at the moment, and we know that Halifax needs more of these to bring in more shoppers and help smaller independent stores to prosper.”

Bids from interested developers must be submitted by late April.

Northgate House, a council office, will be vacant by spring 2016. Around the same time central Library and Achieve will re-open in a new building near to the Piece Hall and the old library will then be razed.

Investment in Halifax town centre includes:

Broad Street plaza: £35m

Calderdale is investing £12m in its town centre offices including Princess Buildings, which will generate a £7.5m saving.

The Piece Hall is undergoing £19.8m regeneration

An artist's impression of the revamped Piece Hall

The Central Library and Archive will move to a £9m new-build

The Orangebox youth centre is a £3.9m facility near to the Piece Hall.