Bury – Police Station

Unfortunately, the retail market has changed quickly and dramatically and there is now no demand from the retail sector to meet the original plan, which was for a large supermarket to take over the sites of the former police headquarters and the Castle Leisure Centre, with the proceeds going towards building a new leisure centre on top of the Q Park in Knowsley Street. However, we are still determined to fulfil the potential of the old police headquarters site, where the building is now nearing demolition.

In 2010, Bury police’s headquarters in Irwell Street relocated to a brand new facility at Castlecroft Road, leaving the old site derelict.

Bury Council owns the site and had intended to sell it to a supermarket firm as part of an £8 million project.

That deal fell through in January last year when the supermarket chain suddenly decided to scale back its expansion plans.

Almost a shadow, a shadow of it’s former self, the police station in Bury – a concrete gem by Lancashire County Architect Roger Booth, is in the slow process of absenting itself from the material world.

Closed since 2010, on the day of my visit the podium tower, surrounded by rubble, was little more than a playground for the local kids and urbex intruders. A vista of broken windows, distressed prestressed concrete and tortured steel.

Hurry along nothing to see here – soon.

Other Roger Booth cop shops are available – in Morecambe and Blackpool