AN increase in the number of police station closures is a result of a choice between the keeping the station or the police that are in it, following a decade of cuts to the service.<\/p>\n
Nearly a quarter of all stations in England and Wales have closed their doors for good in the past nine years.<\/p>\n
However, Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor said he would rather money was invested into hiring more frontline officers than keeping open older stations that are not effective or cost-efficient.<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cThe closure of stations is symbolically important because it does signify a withdrawal and doing less, but undoubtedly they have been the result of austerity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the times that we\u2019re in, those are the consequences of austerity in regard to policing. That\u2019s not to say that some police stations aren\u2019t ripe for closing anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe custody estate in Essex has been woefully under-provisioned and under-resourced for so much time now that they\u2019re so far gone. And there are other elements of the estate, which have likewise had so little investment in previous times, that just disposing of them and getting them off the balance sheet is potentially the most prudent thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve added that problems can arise when closed stations are not replaced with anything else, but did say that if officers work in a different way not every town or village needs a local station.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cSome replacement buildings are shared spaces \u2013 it doesn\u2019t have the same image but having a station in every town is a luxury policing can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than spending money maintaining dilapidated old police stations, we\u2019d rather see that money being invested in more officers to actually do the job rather than the building for them to do it from.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a baseline, if we\u2019ve got to have one or the other we\u2019d rather have numbers than buildings, although of course if buildings are redeemable with a little bit of investment then that should be considered too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re closing these police stations because we have to make a really difficult choice between officers to do the job and a building for them to work from.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not making excuses, in a time of austerity, for us to close that police station because we\u2019re going to save a bit of money and we\u2019re going to be more efficient in what we\u2019re delivering. We\u2019re closing that police station because we can\u2019t afford to keep it open. Because it\u2019s a choice between the police station or the police that are in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not a happy situation for any of us to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"