Commuters take note: Food and drink retailers at Belfast's new Grand Central Station revealed as public opening draws near

Translink CEO Chris Conway revealed today that there will be a Pret-a-Manger (the upscale sandwich-and-coffee vendor) and a Marks & Spencer outlet in the station.

He also said that Brewdog, the craft beer-maker, will be selling its products there too.

Bus services will start running at the station from Sunday, September 8 – but it is not yet known when trains will start to run there.

There are currently a raft of bus substitution services in place until at least next Monday between Lanyon Place (formerly Belfast Central Station) and Lisburn, due to engineers re-jigging the railway lines to connect up the new Grand Central Station.

"This is the largest integrated station on the island of Ireland,” said Mr Conway this morning, adding that it will bring “new retail offers such as Pret-a-Manger, Marks & Spencers, BrewDog for example, and will add to the regeneration of the entire area of Belfast”.

Mr Conway told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that the project – which he said is the biggest infrastructure project on the island of Ireland – was originally budgeted to cost £300m in 2022.

But due to inflation, he expects it to come in between 10% and 15% over budget, which he described as “an exceptional achievement by the teams given the extraordinary inflation we've seen since then”.

Asked about when the train services will start at the new station, he said: “We're still going through a safety authorisation process for the railway so it will move shortly after [September 8], but the date for that is still to be confirmed.

"We hope to be able to confirm that soon. but there's a safety authorisation process and the safety approvals have to be approved by the safety authority...

"Hopefully that will happen in the weeks to come and we'll be able to confirm that.”