Council to buy former bus depot to help reshape town

CHORLEY Council is to buy the town’s former bus depot as part of development plans for the town centre.

Councillors have given the green light to the purchase of the former Stagecoach depot on Eaves Lane, which has been vacant since the company relocated its Chorley operation.

The council aims to use the former bus depot as its own depot which would in turn free up its current Bengal Street depot – a key location in the council’s town centre masterplan.

Cllr Peter Wilson, deputy leader of Chorley Council, said: “The former bus depot ticks all the boxes for us.

“We could move into it almost straight away and use it as our depot. It’s next to Tatton Community Centre which we already own and so improves our assets in that area.

“But more importantly for us, it gives us the chance to free up a prime location in the town centre.

“This would then give us so many options as we seek to develop and improve the town centre with the Market Walk extension.

“We’ve been looking at our Bengal Street site for a number of years now, at how we can make the most of its location. We’ve looked at alternative places to move our depot to, but none of the alternatives have really been suitable.

“Moving our depot to the former Stagecoach depot I think would be ideal, but if for whatever reason it isn’t, then there would still be the potential for development which would improve the area.”

The Eaves Lane depot has been historically used for bus storage, repairing and cleaning. It has very large high sliding doors suitable for large vehicles to be stored and repaired, there are repairing trenches built in and offices, toilets, a canteen and kitchen facilities, plus there’s room for parking within the 0.6 acre site.

Cllr Wilson said that moving out of Bengal Street would help the council with its future town centre strategy requirements.

“We’ve been looking for sites in the town centre to make up for the loss of car parking spaces on the Flat Iron car park which is why we turned the derelict site on Cleveland Street into a car park.

“Our Bengal Street depot site could also be used create additional parking which would more than make up for the spaces lost to the Market Walk extension. However, this is not to say that other uses for the Bengal Street site would not be considered in the future as we develop and improve our town centre.”

The purchase of the Stagecoach depot would be funded within the existing Market Walk extension budget.