New proposal to overhaul former police station

Astley-based Beacon Developments acquired the old Warrington Road cop shop, which had a guide price of £140,000, before it was due to go up for auction in July.

An old planning permission has been in force there since 2014, allowing the main station to be converted into four homes and a further four properties to be constructed elsewhere on the site.

But after making the purchase, the company has decided the blueprints need revising, before the project can proceed.

Further proposals have been submitted to demolish a ground floor annex, abandon a first floor extension and retain the boundary wall.

The four extra properties would be also be set back by a metre from the kerb in Hey Street and the attic space would also be converted, under the updated bid.

Applicant Andrew Pringle has told planners: “We feel the approved internal layout could work better and more efficiently at the old police station building and that stepping the new build back from the edge of kerb delineates this element of the project from the existing street scene and breaks up the uniformity of some sections of Hey Street.”

Part of the application would see the former Coronation Road entrance to the station yard sacrificed for car parking spaces and gardens for the adjacent homes.

The police station itself, which dates back to around 1900, was mothballed 14 years ago as part of a programme which would see Shevington, Orrell and Pemberton’s Ormskirk Road outposts sold off and turned into either housing or offices.

The old borough police headquarters in Harrogate Street was also moved to Robin Park Road around the same time.

Though the front counter closed at Ince in 2003 the majority of the building had principally been used for storage for a number of years.

Before now there has been a number of attempts to resurrect the old station, which have faltered.

Plans for offices there, lodged in 2007, never came to fruition.

Another bid for a children’s nursery, in 2011, which would have seen the police station yard transformed into a play area, didn’t progress.