The diggers have moved in and signalled the start of work on the construction of a new £5million state-of-the-art centralised Bolsover District Council depot at Doe Lea.

Sited alongside the A617, this new depot will replace the existing sites at Bolsover and South Normanton and will be the base for all the Councils grounds maintenance, refuse, housing repairs and street cleansing operations.

The new depot will cover an area of 1.4 ha and is expected to be fully up and running by April 2009. It will include office blocks, workshops, stores buildings and a 'grass' roof so it will blend into the surrounding countryside when viewed from the roadside.

The funding for the project has come from the sale of a number of our assets including buildings, small pockets of open space/land and the sale of the land from the existing two depot facilities. The decision to centralise was taken in 2006 after exploring various options which included upgrading our existing sites or relocating to the Bolsover depot, both of which were not cost effective due to the amount of work required to bring the buildings up to a suitable standard.

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Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Councillor Alan Tomlinson said: "We have been working on this project for some time now and are delighted that it is actually going to become a reality and without costing the taxpayer anything additional. We currently operate from two depot sites and this was beginning to become a strain on our finances due to ongoing repairs, but this brand new facility will provide us with a more cost effective service and bring us into the 21st century.

"We are working very closely with our contractors Ashford Construction to minimise any disruption locally and we have also undertaken numerous site surveys to ensure the surrounding countryside, river and wildlife are protected during the development of the site."

A spokesperson for Ashford Construction Plc added: "We are very committed to this exciting scheme, and will make every effort to ensure that during construction, local residents are kept fully informed. As is the case with all our projects, we welcome the opportunity of working alongside the client, the professional team and indeed local residents, to deliver a finished product in which all parties have pride."

For further information, please telephone: 01246 242223 or email [email protected]