YATE is to become home to South Gloucestershire Council's third major headquarters.

Plans to develop a site at the junction of Stover Road and Badminton Road into a modern centre for the council's planning and children's services and community care staff have been approved by councillors.

The move is part of a £21 million project which will see council offices in Thornbury and Kingswood modernised and regional offices moved to one of the three main centres.

Pushing for the project, council leader Cllr Neil Halsall (Lib Dem. Thornbury North) said: "The principle is to bring staff groups together in fewer offices and to improve the quality of our offices, as some of them are quite appalling."

He said the Yate office could include a one-stop-shop to allow residents to make face-to-face enquiries and pay bills and would help the council become more effective.

Cllr Alan Bracey (Lib Dem. Westerleigh) said the site was actually in his Westerleigh ward, and not in Yate at all.

He added: "The amount of people and employees who will drive to the site will mean there will be quite a few traffic problems.

"If bus services do not run to the site then people will use their own vehicles."

He said if plans for a park and ride at Nibley do go ahead, bus service will need to include the Stover Road site on some routes.

Cllr Bill Bowrey (Lab. Rodway) went further calling for a review of bus services in the area, particularly between Kingswood and Yate.

He said: "We have to make the site equally accessible to everybody in the authority but it is no good at the moment."

The project will take the council 21 years to pay for but will ultimately save money on leasing local buildings in Chipping Sodbury and Emerson's Green. Old office blocks in various parts of South Gloucestershire will be sold off or leased out to raise some of the capital. Loans are also being considered to meet the multi-million pound bill over the next ten years.

Cllr Halsall said: "Ten to 15 years in the future we will have broken even and will have the advantage that buildings will belong to this council."

Councillors have agreed that this year's budget will include a £400,000 payment to start the Stover Road build and centralisation process.