By Margaret Crosby

Published at 15:42, Wednesday, 22 April 2009

THE former council-owned depot at Ginns is to be demolished, clearing the area in readiness for new development.

Future plans: The old Ginns council depot

But councillors stress that the move is “purely preparatory and not because we have got a firm offer on the site’’.

It is expected to take around three months to demolish, aiming to minimise disruption to the residents of adjacent terraced housing.

The building, which sits behind Ellison Place and Bentinck Row, used to be a base for Copeland’s direct labour workforce and has been empty for around five years.

Last week it was revealed that two supermarket firms were expressing interest in the vacant Ginns site, one of them believed to be Asda, who 15 months ago pulled out of a multi-million scheme to occupy a large tract of land in that area, including the council-owned site.

Since then the council has, in conjunction with urban regeneration agency West Lakes Renaissance, commissioned a £59,000 development report for the area, with contributions from Maple Grove Developments and Morbaine Ltd who are both land owners in the plan area.

The development plan, covering 3.4 hectares, has divided the Ginns area into three zones and says Maple Grove’s land (zone A) is suitable for business use, the Morbaine land (zone B) could accommodate retail or leisure use and the Copeland Council-owned zone C would be best suited to residential use. It could take an apartment development and a further eight townhouses with a Coach Road frontage.

The report concluded that the development of zones A and B was currently unviable without public sector funding and that both owners were keen to work with the council to enable development of the total site.

The council has received an estimate of £50,000 to demolish the Ginns depot, which contains some asbestos. Demolition would help the council to avoid paying a £16,000 rates bill on the building.

It has previously benefited from rate relief applied to empty commercial properties but since April last year that relief has been stopped and the annual rates bill for the Ginns depot is now £16,000. The council has paid it but hopes to get the money back on appeal.

An appeal was lodged seeking exemption from business rates on the grounds that the wider site is being held for future development and that it cannot reasonably be brought back into re-use. However the Valuation Office won’t accept this as justification so an appeal on other grounds has been necessary: that the cost of bringing the building back into use, around £400,000, is prohibitive and not viable.

The council are expecting the Valuation officer to agree.

A further change in the business rate rules has been introduced this year under which empty properties with a rateable value under £15,000 are exempt, but this is expected to be for one year only.

Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk