(10 Feb 2023, 6:57 pm)streetdeckfan wrote Here's a potentially unpopular opinion, not every historic building should be saved.

Just because it was their first depot, doesn't mean it's important. How much of the depot is actually original?

What does CLS depot have that is significant? What would saving it actually do?


Given the significant amount of upkeep it would require, I highly doubt anyone would be able to raise enough money to stay open more than a year. If someone actually wanted to open a transport museum, it would be far cheaper just leasing a modern building.

Just the red brick sections for the most part. The section to the left where there are some windows and where the main exit point for outgoing vehicles is was originally a much larger garage with what appears to have been a large access door (or possibly multiple doors); the fuel lane to the left and wash facilities at the back (facing onto the A167) as they presently exist had come about by at least the 1960s, so that suggests that this section was entirely reconstructed in the mid-century. The section to the right of the arches was originally all offices but was reconstructed into its current format some years later. The section which became known as the 'chute' and used primarily by National Express coaches in later years, identifiable by the large windows along the side, is what I understand was the first part of the building constructed and therefore the oldest surviving section (although the areas immediately around it most likely followed in quick succession). 

I have a copy of a rare photo which probably dates itself at the latest to the outbreak of WWII which shows the building in this way. I'm estimating that sort of date range based on one of the vehicles which can be vaguely made out entering/exiting the large garage area I described above and the absence of any housing of the red brick housing on Picktree Lane, which are in a very similar in style to a pair of semi-detached houses one of my grandads had constructed on a nearby orchard in the post-war period, leading me to believe the houses were probably constructed no later than the late 1940s, possibly earlier.