PLANS to build a new police headquarters for Southampton within the next two years have moved a further step forward.

Police operations in the city are set to shift from their current base, pictured, at the Civic Centre to a new purpose-built site at the junction of West Quay Road and Mountbatten Way in the western half of the city.

The site will be sold to the police by its current owners, Southampton City Council, if final approval is given to the scheme in two weeks' time.

The project was put under the microscope by members of the city council's ruling Liberal Democrat Cabinet.

At the consultation meeting Southampton's top policeman Chief Supt Paul Stickler told members that the city's old police headquarters was not "fit for purpose" for 21st century policing.

He said: "This has been an issue which has occupied my predecessor and my predecessor before that. We have been looking for a new site for ten years.

"The current building is no longer fit for purpose. It was built in the 1930s. I now have significant members of staff working in bad conditions."

The landmark 70,000 sq ft building is due to be completed in September 2009. It will consist of a new station and custody suite containing 42 cells - as well as an operational command unit headquarters.