When it was first unveiled back in 1974, the new showground for the Royal Bath and West Show was truly a showcase for the very best of West Country farming.

At long last, the Royal Bath and West of England Society, which had done so much to improve farming expertise and productivity since its inception in the late 18th century, had a home to call its own.

Long years of being a peripatetic event which set up its marquees at a different location every year – including once in London – came to an end and the annual Bath and West Show had a set of gleaming new buildings to show off on the site it had bought just south of Shepton Mallet.

But one glance around those same buildings today will be enough to convince it that, for the most part, their shelf life is well and truly over. On the busiest days of the Bath and West Show – in attendance terms the largest event of its kind in England – the throngs provide a degree of camouflage.

Strip away the people, the trade stands, the machinery exhibits and the marquees, however, and a far bleaker picture is revealed, particularly in the middle of winter.

Time may have moved on for other show societies. But at the Bath and West – where the course is set and steered by a famously conservative ruling council – it appears to have stood still.

The Shepton Mallet showground no longer represents the modern face of farming. Its assortment of industrial buildings has the charm of a refugee camp.

And it has reached the stage where exhibitors are starting to complain. And that is happening increasingly, and not merely about the poor facilities but also the tortuous road journeys required to reach the location in the first place. Unfavourable comparisons are constantly being made with Westpoint, the home of the Devon County Show, and just five minutes from the M5 – and certainly a quicker drive for anyone starting from Bristol.

It hardly came as a surprise, given such criticisms from influential exhibitors and competitors, when the Smithfield Club ended its three-year arrangement to stage its pre-Christmas event at Shepton Mallet.

It is moving not back to London, its former home, but to the heart of the country, to the more modern (and accessible) venue of Warwickshire's Stoneleigh, regarded by most as the true spiritual home of British farming.

But now, it seems, the Bath and West could be about to turn a corner, with plans unveiled for a £120 million scheme which is designed to transform its gently sloping acres from time-expired showground into a national venue, offering all-weather exhibition and conference facilities, hotels, an agriculture-based specialist retail centre, an outdoor pursuits area, log cabin holiday homes and a business park. The aim is to make the showground energy self-sufficient using renewable technologies – including anaerobic digestion of waste from local dairy farms – and in the process to turn it into a national centre of excellence for renewable energy expertise.

And as many as 1,500 jobs could be created in the process.

T he project has taken seven long years to work up and secure funding for. And the money, reportedly, is definitely on the table. The show society has teamed up with regeneration experts London and Wharfedale, while the third partner in the scheme is LaSalle Investment Management, which controls a £2.4 billion portfolio.

The first planning consents are likely to be sought later this year. But how fast the scheme actually progresses is another matter. Completion is said to be 12 to 15 years away, though the first commercial elements may be finished within five.

Wharfedale's chairman and managing director Richard Froggatt was resolutely upbeat at the launch of the regeneration scheme this week, insisting that despite its somewhat remote location, the showground and the existing business provided a very solid base to build on.

All, the same, he conceded: "I would like to be standing here and telling you when the diggers are coming on site but I cannot, realistically. It is now just a case of getting the momentum going."

And even Bath and West chief executive Dr Jane Guise admits that, while the recession lasts, the emphasis will be very much on planning and doing the groundwork, with the main building phase likely to have to wait until the economy picks up.

And since no one, not even the most astute financial expert in the country, has the faintest idea as to when that might be, the timetable for the reconstruction of the site must necessarily remain vague. In the meantime, the society will have to patch and repair, facing a growing annual bill for maintaining its unattractive, time-expired buildings, while trying to compete for business against other better located, better equipped venues.

There is little doubt that the grand makeover will bring huge economic benefits to the county and the wider region. Showground activities already make an estimated £40 million annual contribution to the regional economy, even on the basis of relatively few days' use a year.

By how much that figure could grow once the site is turned into the vibrant mix of light industry, agricultural showcase and tourist destination envisaged by the scheme's supporters is anyone's guess. But so is the length of time that we all might have to wait for that commendable vision to become reality.