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Stockport Council is to purchase the freehold for its depot off Tenement Lane in Adswood as part of a plan to consolidate services to a single location.
Stockport Council’s Cabinet green-lit the move in a meeting on 28th June to purchase the freehold for the eight-acre former land-fill and brickworks for an undisclosed sum ahead of its lease on the site expiring in October 2022. Purchasing the land will allow the Council to consolidate its Adswood and Bird Hall Lane depots, both also used by Totally Local Company, to deliver a number of efficiency savings, and cut annual rent payments for the site, set to increase to £170,000 per annum should a new lease be agreed.
Council offers have negotiated a sale price with landlords for the site, and following Cabinet approval, can now move forward with progressing the purchase of the Adswood Depot.
The consolidation of the Council’s two depots will also help make way for the development of a new eco businesses park on the Bird Hall Lane site. The Cabinet also moved to progress with procurement of a developer for the £4.4 million scheme, which is being brought forward following Cheadle’s Towns Fund award.
Adjacent to the Adswood Recycling Centre, Stockport Council’s Adswood Depot is currently used for storage by the borough’s highways services, as well as by Totally Local Company for aggregate recycling and maintenance materials storage that they provide on behalf of the Council. Previous plans for a developer to purchase the site for housing previously fell through due to the high costs of environmental remediation needed to make the former land-fill suitable for homes. Other land surrounding the site is also under consideration by developers for volume development, and the purchase will avoid the costs for Stockport Council of relocation elsewhere in the borough.
Following the purchase, Stockport Council’s Aids & Adaptations and Pest Control/Hygiene Action services are expected to move from Bird Hall Lane, along with outside storage and workshop requirements of Totally Local Company, the for-profit facilities management company owned by the Council. Whether office based staff at Enterprise House on Bird Hall Lane will also be relocated is currently being assessed.
The decision to move forward with the purchase was among a number of other decisions to progress with infrastructure and regeneration projects in the borough. Also given sign off by the Cabinet are plans to refurbish the former Debenhams store in the town centre to bring the site back into use, approval for the business plan of the Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation, and approval to appoint contractors on the regeneration of the former St Thomas Hospital site.