Strathclyde Police’s governing body has agreed to carry out a £1 million full business case looking at designs and costs for a new HQ, which would see its nerve centre shift from Pitt Street, in the commercial heart of Glasgow, to a riverside site near the 2014 Commonwealth Games village.

A new HQ building is anticipated to cost in the region of £45m and will be home to up to 1200 police officers and civilian staff.

If the green light is given following the conclusion of the business case it could be built and fully operational in four years’ time.

Pitt Street has been described as “no longer fit for purpose” but could yield several million pounds to the force if and when it is sold on the open market.

Land worth up to £7m will be made available free to the force by development agency Clyde Gateway, the body responsible for injecting new life and business into the swathes of land around the Commonwealth village in Dalmarnock and Parkhead, as well as parts of South Lanarkshire.

Clyde Gateway is also providing the £1m for the feasibility study, which was agreed by the Police Authority yesterday.

The development follows almost two years of speculation that Chief Constable Steve House had been keen to move the police HQ out of the city centre, which has been home to the force in its various guises for over 200 years.

Councillor Paul Rooney, chairman of the Strathclyde Police Authority, said: “It is well documented that the current facilities at force headquarters in Pitt Street are no longer fit for purpose.”

The Pitt Street building was originally erected in 1934 as Glasgow and West of Scotland Commercial College, which later combined with the Royal College of Science and Technology to form Strathclyde University.