ONE of television’s favourite villains is set to make a sensational return to Coronation Street.

Kate Ford, who hails from Kirkby Lonsdale, will hit the cobbles again as superbitch Tracy Barlow - three years after leaving the show.

The brunette beauty had a number of headline-hitting storylines after joining the ITV1 show in 2002, but viewers last saw the schemer jailed for life for murdering her boyfriend and Corrie bad boy Charlie Stubbs, played by Bill Ward.

Tracy’s initial scenes will be filmed from behind bars where she'll become embroiled in a story involving another well loved character, an ITV spokesman told the Gazette.

Rumours are rife in the soap world that Tracy, who is mum to Steve McDonald's daughter Amy and the daughter of Ken and Deirdre, will start an affair with a Wetherfield resident but producers are keeping tight-lipped about the storyline.

Kate, who has won two British Soap Awards for Best Bitch and one for Best Actress for her portrayal as the man-eating Tracy, will make her full comeback to the street after a couple of months, in time for the 50th anniversary of the much-loved soap.

The former Kirkby Lonsdale Queen Elizabeth School student, who regularly returns home to visit her parents, who still live in the area, will start filming in March with the scenes hitting our screens at the end of May.

The 32-year-old started her career as a youngster at Lancaster Youth Theatre.

She married sweetheart Jon Connerty at a star-studded ceremony in Thornton-in-Lonsdale, near Ingleton, in 2007.