The Scoop

Police stations to be closed to the public across London

Adam Bienkov | Thursday 5 July, 2012 11:45

Police station front counters will be closed across London with just one left in each borough, Boris Johnson’s Deputy Mayor for Policing announced today.

Stephen Greenhalgh told the London Assembly’s Police And Crime Committee that while he had not personally signed off any closures yet, “they were in the pipeline.”

He claimed that many front counters were barely used by Londoners:

“we have to accept that the old fashioned front counter provision is probably not the solution for the twenty first century, even though we will retain a 24 hour front counter in every London borough”

Greenhalgh raised the prospect of sharing front counters with libraries and accident and emergency units and even manning counters with volunteers.

He was joined by Assistant Commissioner Simon Byrne who insisted that Londoners would only ever be “ten minutes by car” from a police station front counter.

A number of Assembly Members pointed out that many of their constituents were already more than ten minutes from a station.

The announcement comes after the Met announced that nine police stations in London would close altogether.

It also comes after a £233 million hole was revealed in the Mayor’s policing budget.

Greenhalgh yesterday told the Evening Standard that the shortfall was in reality even larger.

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