£2.5m Shrewsbury bus depot is opened

Shrewsbury's £2.5 million new bus depot has been officially opened by a Government minister, who arrived, appropriately, by bus.

Norman Baker MP, who is the parliamentary under-secretary of state for transport, visited the town yesterday to open Arriva Midlands' new base in Harlescott Lane.

The site, which took a year to build, has more than 100 employees and 48 buses all housed in a state of the art building, which offers a host of environmetally-friendly features.

It replaces the Ditherington bus depot, which was bought by Shropshire Council last year for £2.3 million.

The purchase of the old depot will make way for the redevelopment of the Flax Mill Maltings site which has recently won the first round of vital funding.

Bob Hind, regional managing director of Arriva Midlands, attended the opening ceremony with Mr Baker, meeting the politician at Shrewsbury Railway Station before travelling to the depot by bus.

He said the new building will help the bus company to grow and develop its main services.

"This is a great time for us to be moving up a gear," he added.

Arriva's environmentally-friendly site includes energy efficient lighting and a rainwater harvesting system which collects water from the roof and stores it in an 80,000 litre underground storage tank. It is then used in the two new bus washes, each of which can recycle about 90 per cent of water used to clean the vehicles.

A joint statement from Keith Barrow, leader of Shropshire Council and Simon Jones, cabinet member for transport, welcomed the new site.

"We would like to congratulate Arriva on the opening of the new garage. Arriva has been a strong and effective partner over many years and continues to improve service quality and coverage across the county," they said.

By Chris Burn