Work starts on Ulverston police station redevelopment
Danny Barlow Construction will deliver workspace and short stay accommodation along with retail and F&B in a £3.5m project led by BDN.
Building Design (Northern), headquartered in Sunderland, currently operates a North West office from Ulverston Business Centre, and will relocate to the project once phase one is complete.
Disused for the last 10 years, the grey stone building on Neville Steet, on the edge of Ulverston town centre, was built in 1881. Work started last week on the building’s transformation.
Ulverston’s former police station building will house the scheme’s commercial office space, with jail cells reimagined as boutique accommodation.
The area that housed the superintendent’s quarters – demolished prior to BDN’s acquisition of the site – will house further serviced accommodation.
The old Courthouse will incorporate a new restaurant pavilion, with a surrounding courtyard of former garages – now demolished – converted into commercial space aimed at retail businesses. Further short-stay apartments will be created in the upper floors of the building.
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BDN, founded in 1983, has been busy in recent years on the redevelopment of Sheepfold Stables in its home city of Sunderland, a scheme that has seen a fringe location repurposed as a leisure destination, opening in 2024.
Director Joe Warner said: “Our MD at BDN is from Sunderland, and has delivered a number of really transformative projects in his home city. I know how much pride that has brought him. So, for me to be able to do the same in Ulverston, and for the business to acquire a building that has stood in a state of disrepair for so long, and to now be breathing new life into it, is absolutely brilliant.
The project will combine new-build and refurb. Credit: planning documents
“This was once such a stunning building, and given its position on the edge of the town providing a distinctive welcome point for people coming into the area, it’s been sad to see it in such a sorry state, becoming a magnet for anti-social behaviour. I’m looking forward to bringing it back into contemporary use.”
The transformation of the police station will be delivered in two phases, with the first focusing on the main building, reimagined as around 1,400 sq ft of office space for BDN, large enough to support the expansion of the business, and nine luxury apartments available for short stays.
This first phase is expected to take between 12 and 18 months to deliver.
Phase two will comprise the transformation of the old Courthouse and surrounding courtyard of former garages. Planning consent, granted two years ago, is also in place for three houses to stand within the grounds of the station, a part of the project billed as The Stables.
It is expected that the full scheme will be complete by 2028.
Documents from the project’s planning application can be seen on Westmorland & Furness’s planning portal (EEden & South Lakeland section), with the reference SL/2023/0400.
The Courthouse entrance, as envisioned in the 2023 DAS. Credit: planning documents
