WITH just eight months to go until Eden opens in High Wycombe, there is a buzz of excitement on the building site.

The covered walkways that will transport people around the 675,000 square foot shopping centre are clearly visible from inside the site and some of the centre's flagship stores are beginning to be kitted out, including House of Fraser and Marks & Spencer.

The 12-screen cinema and 18-lane bowling alley are also coming along on in leaps and bounds.

The Free Press was given a sneak peak behind the construction scenes by developer Multiplex on Tuesday, and got to glimpse the enormous open spaces that will eventually become the cinema screens.

Two huge escalators will lead shoppers up into Eden's leisure area above Marks and Spencer.

Film buffs will see through a huge glass wall in the lobby to the traffic below, as it flows round the Tesco roundabout.

The biggest screen, number one, will feature private, soundproof boxes for film addicts.

Opposite the cinema will sit the new library and a square with outdoor seating and landscaping. The covered walkways leading from the library will take shoppers past H&M, Topshop, HMV, Mon-soon, New Look, Clinton Cards, Water-stones and dozens of other new shops.

Visitors will then be guided past the flagship House of Fraser store and down towards the town's old bus station, which is currently full of diggers and dust.

It will be home to New Look, Orange, Superdrug, and other stores.

From here shoppers will be steered behind the existing Tesco and into the Octagon, which will become part of Eden when it opens next March.

And work is also going on full speed ahead above the shops. Newlands carpark is being merged with the extra 1,600 spaces that Eden is creating and a new spiral entrance is being built for cars. More than 40 new flats and apartments are also being built on top of the shops next to the new carparking levels.

Eden is bang on target to open next year and is beginning to recruit the 1,750 people needed to run it.