A BUS depot dating back nearly 100 years has been given listed status, dealing a blow to plans to regenerate part of Widnes town centre.

Historic England announced on Friday, November 27, that the former Halton Transport depot in Moor Lane had been given grade two-listed status, describing the building as ‘a rare and largely intact example of a purpose-built bus depot, which is earlier in date than the few other listed examples nationally’.

It is understood that the decision followed an application by Widnes residents who feared that the depot, built in 1923, would be demolished so the site could be redeveloped following the collapse of Halton Transport earlier this year.

Halton Borough Council bought the depot from Halton Transport for £245,000 in December 2019 ‘as part of its longer-term regeneration aspirations for the Moor Lane area’, according to a council spokesman.

Further details of how the site fits into those plans has not yet been revealed, but the listing of the depot will make it much harder for the council to demolish the building as part of those plans.

Giving reasons for its decision to list the depot, Historic England said: “The building is a particularly early surviving example of a bus depot built at a time when motorised buses were becoming, and were to remain, the primary form of road-based public transport in England.

“Widnes Corporation was one of the first councils in the country to start a bus service after parliament granted the Widnes Corporation Act in 1908, and its subsequent construction of a purpose-built bus depot was a very visible investment in this policy.”

Historic England also pointed to the fact that the building was largely unchanged since the 1920s, save for the addition of a workshop and canteen in the 1940s, and said its facade ‘lifts the building above the purely functional and underlines a civic pride’.

A spokesman for HBC said the local authority had received Historic England’s report and was considering its contents.