Work has started on a brand new £1.25million home for West Cumbria's hardworking highways staff.
The new depot at Lillyhall will be a purpose built Allerdale base for Cumbria Highways - the partnership between Cumbria County Council, Capita Symonds and Amey Infrastructure Services.
The new buildings will soon be rising on the site off Joseph Noble Road on Lillyhall Industrial Estate at Lillyhall. County councillor Ian Stewart, cabinet member responsible for highways, will be on site to see the start of construction at 1.15pm on Tuesday, October 23rd. Members of the media are welcome to come and see for themselves.
(Meet on the road beside the site at 1.15pm and hard hats and high visibility jackets will be provided and sturdy footwear is recommended.)
The new base will replace the existing depot at Sullart Street in Cockermouth. Cumbria Highways staff and dozens of pieces of specialist equipment and vehicles such as gritters, gully-emptiers, pick-up trucks and verge cutters will be moving from Sullart Street into the new Lillyhall premises in the early months of 2008.
When complete, the new Lillyhall depot will be the operational base for the area's highways work including the winter gritting programme, the highways response teams who tackle faults and defects and attend accident scenes as well as the day-to-day work of maintaining the roads and pavements.
Cumbria County Council is selling the 4.66 acre Sullart Street site with outline planning permission which requires that 25 per cent of the minimum 76 residential properties must be available as affordable housing for local people.
Sullart Street has been home to the men and women looking after parts of Cumbria's highways network for many years - Cumbria County Council inherited the site in 1974 when the council began its life. But its predecessor, Cumberland County Council, had by then been using it for some years.
The Sullart Street site has already been offered for sale by sealed bids in excess of £3,500,000. The deadline for bids is noon on November 14th.
Proceeds from the sale of Sullart Street will pay for the new facilities at Lillyhall Industrial Estate. The remainder will go into council coffers to help pay for capital schemes which meet the council's priorities.
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Media enquiries to Justin Hawkins, Media Officer on 01228 606334