THE site of the former Chippenham Police Station has been sold for almost £1 million after being up for sale for more than three years.

Closed in March 2013, the police station on Wood Lane has remained vacant since after officers and staff moved to the Wiltshire Council offices near Monkton Park.

It was put on the market in 2014 after it was deemed surplus to requirements and initially valued at almost £2 million.

The site was approved to be sold last October by Police and Crime Commissioner Angus Macpherson, and has been bought by Codex Land PCC Limited who are based in the Isle of Man.

A form approving the decision to sell the site read: “The Commissioner has received an offer of £950,000 from Codex Land PCC Limited for the site which is subject to contract only. [Agent] Carter Jonas recommends acceptance of the offer. It does not consider that remarketing the site would generate a better offer.”

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner declined to comment on the sale of the site, which is almost 2.5 acres.

A former school building, dating from Victorian times but not thought to be listed, is on the site as is the two-storey brick-built police station itself and a single-storey store room.

Cllr Chris Caswill said upon hearing the news: “I really hope the old police station site will be used for the housing which Chippenham desperately needs on brownfield sites like this."

“Even more important is that we should get a large proportion of genuinely affordable houses and flats.

“In a more sensible world, the Council would have snapped up this site and built affordable homes there.

“In any event, it’s good that the site will now be put to positive use.

“As a former member of the police authority, I very much hope the income from the sale will be used by the police to help maintain local, front line policing on the streets of Chippenham.”

Mr Jones, 70, a resident of Flowers Yard which looks onto the site, said: “There’s various things you could do, you’ve got the building there so you could modernise it and turn it into offices.

“Housing would be alright if they didn’t put too many there but I don’t think it needs to be a shop, we’re only a stone’s throw away from Waitrose.”