Work is well underway to create Cheltenham's £6.8 million flagship workspace and events space.

The Minster Exchange (MX) project will house 20,000 square feet of state-of-the-art workspace, a home for The Growth Hub to support business development, a purpose-built events space, café, community and education space.

The project is currently being created on site from 46 bespoke modular units, in the shadow of Cheltenham Minster in the centre of the town.

While it currently looks like it is created from giant Lego bricks, the MX will be clad and will eventually look like one coherent building.

Punchline-Gloucester.com editor, Mark Owen, got a tour from Cheltenham Borough Council leader, Cllr Rowena Hay, and Tim Atkins, the council's managing director of place and growth.

Tim Atkins said: "The front entrance will be a big glass wall. You will be able to see straight into the Minster Gardens, which is Cheltenham's oldest building. The entrance area will be open to all the floors above. It's going to create a beautiful opening and a unique workspace. Nobody else will have anything like it in Cheltenham.

"There's going to be a big events space here. Our partnership with Cheltenham Festivals is really going to help us have a space right in the centre of town to bring people together and really focus on business collaboration events, which will be great for the whole of the centre of Cheltenham."

Large meeting spaces will be used for meetings and conferences by day and the creative arts in the evening, with a focus on local, young creative talent.

The light and airy building has windows on all side.

Cllr Rowena Hay said: "The height of the ceilings is unusual. Modular builds are usually not as high, but this gives an amazing sense of space and airiness, which is really important in a working environment."

The project will allow local businesses to mix and work together.

Tim continued: "We've got separate workspaces - we've got areas for your own business and collaborative workspaces where different people are together.

"A lot of the businesses that are going to be here are going to use this space to meet each other and just relax. That's all part of the model and the environment."

Jason Pritchard from Edge Design Workshop is behind the innovative design of the MX project.

He said: "Modular construction has the benefit of being able to control the quality in a factory setting.

"What we're trying to do as architects is to create buildings that are as energy efficient as they physically can be.

"The way in which this is being constructed, because we're over-cladding it on site, you won't see that it's modular construction at the end. It will be more than the sum of its parts."

The scheme is the centrepiece of Cheltenham Borough Council's post-Covid recovery strategy.

It is hoped that the MX scheme will be completed this summer.