Station closure ‘will not affect policing’

As the Times reported three weeks ago, the town’s police station was on a list of over 30 PSNI facilities earmarked for closure. That list was presented to the December meeting of the Policing Board for consideration last week.

Police said the closures would save £3.5m a year - £2m in rates, maintenance and service contracts, and £1.5m on paying contract security staff to protect the buildings.

The savings would be used to help pay the wages of the 600 extra officers taken from desk jobs to the streets since June 2009.

It’s thought under the closure plan every district council area will have a police station and no-one will be more than 20 miles from a full-time station and that there will be no change to response times.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Jones said the closures would not affect community policing.

“Most of the police stations that we are looking at are actually open for a small period of time,” he said.

Read the full story in this week’s Times...