(01 Feb 2023, 7:29 pm)Adrian wrote Preserving buildings cost a fortune, especially when you're responsible for the upkeep and repair. It's listed at £1.95 million to start with, and that's in it's current state. We already know from press reports that the depot would require considerable investment to get it up to standard, but even at that, it's never going to be to a modern useful standard. Plus it's full of asbestos, which is another problem for a would-be preservationist to resolve. 

There is of course funding/grants available, such as Heritage England and the Heritage Lottery Fund, but they don't hand out money for free or on the basis something should be kept. There needs to be a long-term future plan for it, and especially what benefits it is going to bring to the community. Doing something around training and education is one, but it doesn't come cheap, and you'd have the overheads of that on top of the upkeep and repair of a building.

I can't see it having a future in it's present form. It'd even be a waste of money for a lottery winner.

You make some very fair and valid comments there. Never realised the place is full of asbestos to be honest. Whether the building is preserved or pulled down I would imagine it will cost a lot to remove it either way.

The main point of my post was to say it seems such a shame that the company's first ever depot, and ultimately where the company started being torn down and forgotten about.

I wonder if preservation groups in the area would be interested in coming together and renting the building from Go North East. There's loads of room to store the vehicles, and plenty of stores, workshop space and pits to work on the buses. They could have open days, fundraising days and guided tours around the site to help with the upkeep and costs to run the place. As far as I'm aware there isn't any transport museum in the North East. As I said earlier I can't see this happening but I feel something needs to be done to commemorate what is ultimately a historic building.

---

(02 Feb 2023, 7:45 pm)Storx wrote It just seems an awkward site with the 45 degree angle.

Btw for keeping it's history, the best thing would be to build apartments (or something else) but use the Northern archway as form of focus piece, maybe as the access point. The rest of the building is neither nothing or something to be honest and a bit of an eyesore tbh.

That's not a bad shout that. If say Lidl did buy the site to build a supermarket they might well do this as they preserved a chimney/tower at the site of the store in Swalwell. I reckon they could fit a store on there although I think the main issue would be traffic.