A £7.5 million project will see North East Lincolnshire Council’s central depot transformed as services are combined and consolidated with regeneration partner Equans.
The Doughty Road facility is to be overhauled, with a new main entrance onto Grimsby’s Peaks Parkway as it becomes the single operationse base for the borough.
Facilities will be significantly updated with more workers brought into the town centre as a result, with the eventual closure of a second site at Gilbey Road.
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Planning permission was granted last week, and work is now underway.
Lincolnshire-based GBM has been appointed for asbestos removal, demolition and site clearance, with more contracts to follow. NELC is managing the contract in-house with Equans (formerly Engie).
The local authority operates Doughty Road and Gilbey Road sites, and they are used as bases for services such as waste and recycling, highway maintenance, fleet management, street cleansing, security, civil enforcement, property maintenance, licensing, grounds maintenance and ecology.
A new grounds maintenance building, extensions to the existing garages, a new weighbridge and road surfacing are all part of the investment, with the entrance to feed into the existing junction with for the retail park featuring B&Q and Halfords.
Cllr Stewart Swinburn, portfolio holder for environment and transport at NELC, said: “Doughty Road Depot is becoming outdated and needs to be redeveloped to cater for the services that will be based there.
“Bringing our depots together on one site will reduce our property maintenance costs, improve service efficiency and provide good quality facilities for the workforce.
“The property improvements will also help us improve the energy efficiency of our buildings and move toward a zero-emissions vehicle fleet.”
Gilbey Road will be retained until the works are completed, with plans to extend the Community Recycling Centre on part of the site. Options for the remainder, sat within a disused South Humber Bank rail ring bordered by Moody Lane and West Coates Road - predominantly used for car import handling - are to be considered.
The full refurbishment should complete by mid-2023. Rainwater harvesting for fleet cleaning and a solar panel car park canopy are key green energy measures, with vehicle charging points and battery storage also included alongside air source heat pumps for the buildings.
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