POLICE bosses were left red-faced after the site of the new Blackburn police station was raided by tool thieves.

The thieves carried out the raid on Tuesday night after breaking into a shed on the construction site at Greenbank Business Park in Whitebirk.

They escaped with £500 worth of building tools and police have now launched an investigation.

The site will be the base for Eastern Division headquarters which is moving from its current base at Northgate in Blackburn town centre.

Building work started on the station in August and is scheduled for completion in June next year.

The state-of-the-art centre will serve all of Eastern Division, which covers Blackburn, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley.

The new contract has been awarded to Wates Construction based in Manchester, one of the largest companies in the UK.

Completion of the work will spell the end for the current police station in Northgate when the crumbling Victorian building will be sold off and a smaller police station built in the town centre at a site to be decided.

The entire scheme will cost around £8million, £5.6m for the new headquarters and £2.4m for the new town centre base, and has been made possible because of a grant from the Home Office.

The new Blackburn town centre station will be used by officers in the town centre while the rest of the divisional work will be shipped out to Whitebirk.

The Victorian building in Northgate is outdated and too cramped for the demands of a modern police centre. The station is headquarters for one of the busiest divisions in Lancashire and is regularly filled to bursting during busy periods.

The new station will include a purpose-built custody suite complete with 42 cells and seven interview rooms. An IT and communications suite, as well as a forensic investigation lab, also form part of the plans.

A gym, doctor's surgery and modern canteen have also been included in the architect's drawings.

Police had hoped to have the new centre open by spring, but problems with the initial estimate for the project led to the scheme being sent out to tender for a second time.

Police chiefs say the new police base will not mean the closure of either Great Harwood or Accrington police stations.