Home Local News Demolition of Glenburn Sports College

Demolition of Glenburn Sports College

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Cllr John Fillis, overlooking the preferred gateway to the site of Glenburn Sports College

County Councillor John Fillis has welcomed the decision to demolish Glenburn Sports College as part of Lancashire County Council, Skelmersdale Rail Link Project.

Cllr John Fillis said “The economic benefits that the demolition of this building would open up to not only the local area but Lancashire as a whole are enormous. This will enable us to progress with vital GRIP 2 and 3 reports that will establish the engineer works required as well as a base for the cost benefit analysis to build a station in Skelmersdale.”

In November 2016 the Secretary of State determined that the whole of the school site transferred to Lancashire County Council, which does not include the Westbank site, which still belongs to Newcastle College Group. This was followed by the decision to identify the site as the most suitable to build a station.

Development Control consent for the demolition was approved in April 2017. Work was held up by detailed investigations into the demolition methodology, which revealed that significantly more asbestos removal would need to be undertaken than first envisaged. Due to the nature of the buildings construction asbestos has been embedded into the concrete floors, which will need to be manually removed. There are around 9,000 asbestos support packers all of which need to be removed prior to the main structure demolition. The County Council Cabinet has now agreed that demolition will proceed.

Cllr John Fillis said “Skelmersdale Railway Station has received cross party support, which is vital for such a long term project. I recognise that people want to see progress, however we must ensure that the health and safety of those working on the scheme is paramount.

Lancashire is the main funder of this project, financial support from the government would not only be welcome but it would accelerate the delivery of a Train Station in Skelmersdale. We have seen major infrastructure projects receiving billions of pounds right across the UK, why not here is West Lancashire?”

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