Councillors have approved plans for a police logistics hub at Thatcham.
West Berkshire Council’s eastern area planning committee approved an application from Thames Valley Police to build a three-storey, 7,800 sq m building on 4.2 hectares of agricultural land east of Goddards Road and No 2 Gables Way, next to the Colthrop Industrial Estate, at its May 8 meeting.
However, the site, now owned by the police, already has permission for a development of warehouses and one councillor argued in favour of the police scheme simply to prevent those from being built.
Ward member Cllr Owen Jeffery told the meeting: “I’m urging approval of an application of which I do not approve.
“About 18 months ago, a previous eastern area planning committee agreed – after a tied vote – to permit an appalling travesty of a planning application to be approved.
“We had cross political party opposition, we had cross town and parish council opposition, all opposed to an utterly inappropriate 24/7 HGV delivery and exchange depot but it was approved.
“As a result, an application that I would otherwise be utterly opposing, I support.”
The police building will enable the force to close a number of other sites and consolidate them into the new Thatcham building. It will accommodate 362 full-time roles which could grow to 500 over a 25-year period.
The site was a last-ditch opportunity for the police.
A manager from the estates team told the meeting: “We’ve been doing this (search) for four years and we had largely given up when this site came onto the market. It was just very much the last site search we were doing.
“We have looked at a whole range of options. We looked at our existing sites; whether we could redevelop those, we looked at partner agencies and we’ve looked commercially.”
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