Lancashire Police headquarters are to get a £75m overhaul to make the force’s base fit for the 21st century.

The bold blueprint for the site in Hutton first emerged just over a year ago and has now been granted planning permission.

Police commissioner Andrew Snowden told South Ribble Council’s planning committee the transformation – which will involve the demolition of dozens of buildings – was urgently needed in order to bring the sprawling facility up to the standards required for present-day policing.

Nevertheless the eight-phase redevelopment will take between 10 and 12 years to complete, with construction work taking place intermittently during that period.

The scheme will cover both the main HQ site on Saunders Lane and nearby facilities on Lindle Lane, which house the constabulary’s dogs and horses.

As part of the revamp, extensions to the existing headquarters building will be removed and a new one added.  The remaining part of the structure will get what is described in planning documents as a “cosmetic upgrade” – and the completed facility will boast a “coherent design more suited to modern working practices”.

Two new vehicle maintenance unit buildings will also be created, along with a decked car park and new kennels and stables.

The headquarters were first developed in the late 1930s and saw significant expansion after the Second World War.  The most recent new building is itself now 30 years old and Mr Snowden told councillors the Lancashire force was “trying to run cutting-edge police servicing in the 2020s with infrastructure dating back to the 1960s”.

He added:  “It only takes a short amount of time to appreciate why 95 per cent of the buildings on the two HQ sites are graded as unfit for purpose.   There is an urgent need to create a fit-for-purpose headquarters that can support and enable an efficient and effective policing service for our county.

The committee heard an alternative option would be to sell off the greenbelt site and for the constabulary to move elsewhere, but the commissioner said: “That is not what we want, it is not what the local community would want and…certainly not what the local economy would want.”

The plans aim to improve parking at the facility, where nearly 2,400 staff work.   Two hundred of the current parking spaces are “improvised”, with vehicles being “dumped in corners [or] on grass verges”. Nearly 1,500 spaces will be available, more than 300 in a new two-deck car park.

But neighbour Francis McLaughlin said the access ramp for the six-metre tall facility would be just 20 metres from his propery and a new internal circulatory road around the HQ would pass closer still to his back garden, “affording us no privacy”.

“This will destroy any enjoyment of our home and garden, with no respite,” he said.

Another resident, Susan Fox, urged councillors to reject the bid amid concerns wildlife would not be protected by the redevelopment.

Ecology reports found buildings on both the Saunders Lane and Lindle Lane sites show varying degrees of potential for bat and barn owl roosting, as well as the land having scope as foraging ground.

Meanwhile Sport England objected to the loss of football and rugby playing pitches on the site and a bowling green close to the brook.

Councillors were told that the pitches had not been used since around 2010

Cllr Phil Smith said while the presence of the headquarters is sometimes a source of “aggravation” for locals, “one of the last things” he would want to see is for the facility to be shut down and the land repurposed.

“Having them close by must be a great benefit to Hutton…and the people that live locally – you’re never far from a police [officer],” he said.

The committee unanimously approved the application, granting full planning permission for the first three phases of the redevelopment – across both Saunders Lane and Lindle Lane – and outline permission for the remaining stages, concentrated on the main HQ site.