Dominic Gibbons, managing director of Hull-based Wykeland Group, the lead consortium company behind the development, welcomed the news as the end of a long process and the commencement of another.

The Flemingate regeneration project has been a seven year journey through the concept and planning stage and has involved a huge team of town planning experts, architects, retail consultants and other professionals to get to this point.

The Secretary of State’s decision not to call in the proposal and to leave it with the East Riding of Yorkshire Council means the Council can now effectively rubber-stamp its original decision in July to approve our application.

He added: There are still one or two matters to be resolved surrounding the details of the Section 106 Agreement which we hope to finalise with ERYC in the next couple of weeks.

The remediation work on the Flemingate site will be completed by next week, at which time the area will be handed back to the consortium development team. Detailed drawings are currently being prepared to enable the tender process for the construction to begin with a view to work starting in mid 2013. The actual build programme will take around 18 months to complete and it is hoped the whole site will open as one, in autumn 2014.