Police plan for station closures
Devon and Cornwall Police plans to close police stations and offices across Devon and Cornwall in the next five years as the Force strives to save £29m from its current budget.
In most cases closures would lead to the building of smaller, more cost effective facilities, or see police teams sharing facilities within their communities. None of the sites being closed are currently open to the public.
The closures or lease surrenders would make revenue savings of at least £1.053m a year.
Faced with the next round of budget cuts under the Government’s comprehensive spending review – and with the threat of further financial losses from the Home Office’s unfavourable funding formula, Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Hogg and Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer will have no option but to look even harder at the Force’s estate in the future.
Andrew White, chief executive for the PCC, said: “Both the commissioner and chief constable are clear - given the choice they always prefer to spend money on police officers rather than bricks and mortar.
“For some months we have been considering how best to reduce our estate, to reduce costs and create income whilst still maintaining an effective base for operational policing.
“We had hoped to undertake local communications at each location before making this announcement but, as staff at certain locations are being informed of plans, it was fair and transparent to publish the full list.
“The commissioner has spoken openly about plans to mitigate the next wave of Government cuts and how savings could be made.
“Until recently the plans were based on us having to make £29m worth of savings but we are now expected to make an additional £25m savings – bringing the total to £54m.
“This makes it unavoidable that we look once again at our estate.
“We are comfortable that the plans announced today will have little impact on operational delivery but, if £54m cuts become a reality, I would expect this will mean closures of other sites and a significant reduction in the services that can be delivered.
“We continue to strive to gain as much value out of our estate as possible. This includes our plans to develop unused real estate for sale or rental as opposed to disposing of sites to commercial developers.
“We will look at many of the sites on this list to see if we can get a higher rate of return by developing them ourselves.”
Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer said: “As a Force we face challenging budget reductions set by the government and the subsequent need to reduce our workforce over the next four years. It is only right that we review our estates and only keep those buildings that are not in need of significant modernisation and those needed to ensure we can continue to deliver a professional police service.
“We are planning for the future by dispensing with buildings which are costly in terms of maintenance while investing in newer and more efficient premises where needed.
“We are not removing ourselves from our communities, we are being more efficient and organised around where we base our people to ensure we continue to deliver the best service we can. Police officers and staff solve crime and keep our communities safe, not buildings.
“The vast majority of frontline officers already spend their time out in communities either responding to incidents or engaging with the public. Our police stations are primarily used as a base for officers to work where they can carry out administrative duties, receive briefings and access welfare and hygiene facilities.”
The PCC is currently preparing to launch a public consultation about how much people would be prepared to pay towards policing through their council tax.
The chief constable is also planning to ask the public about the nature of policing delivery in the future.
