Portsmouth Central Police Station opening

The News, Portsmouth

Portsmouth Central Police Station has reopened to the public

Transcript

00:00 So we are in Portsmouth Central Police Station on Winston Churchill Avenue

00:03 which is the opening of our new front counter today here so this police station

00:08 is now back open to the public. And why was it closed in the first place?

00:12 Well the decision was taken back in 2015/16 by the previous Police and Crime

00:16 Commissioner and previous Chief Officers of Hampshire in the Isle of Wight

00:18 Constabulary to completely redesign their estate plan. Police stations were

00:23 closed, custody suites were closed and a number of front counters were closed in

00:26 order to save money. But since I've been the Police and Crime Commissioner over

00:30 the three years I've really tried to generate more income, I've driven an

00:34 efficiency drive through the force and that's enabled me to be able to open

00:37 police stations again, purchase new buildings for brand new police stations

00:41 and of course reopen front counters such as the one that we're in here.

00:44 Brilliant and how will the reopening of this station change policing in the city?

00:49 Well you know I think it's really important that we have really publicly

00:53 accessible police stations particularly in the heart of our cities. Portsmouth

00:57 Central Police Station is undoubtedly you know the biggest hub right on the

01:01 edge of South Sea and right near the University so it's important that people

01:05 can come in and speak to the police with concerns, get updates on

01:08 crimes they've reported or any other information and intelligence they want

01:12 to feed into the force. The current most accessible police station in Portsmouth

01:15 other than this is of course the Police Investigation Centre which is in

01:18 Hilsey. But that's not that easy for a number of people to get to, particularly

01:23 for disabled people and others so that's why I've given a real commitment to

01:26 wanting to increase visibility, to wanting to make the police as accessible

01:30 as they can possibly be and so opening up police stations again is one of my

01:34 top priorities. And from feedback that you've had from the public and since you

01:39 took over the role, how important is it to be able to report a crime face to face?

01:43 Well for some people, particularly those who can't read and write very well or

01:47 perhaps English isn't their first language, it's really important. Some

01:50 people need to be taken into a quiet room, a quiet space, particularly if

01:54 they're sharing information with the police which is of a very sensitive

01:57 nature or something that's very harrowing to them about a crime that's

02:00 perhaps been committed against them personally, individually. So having sites

02:04 like this as I say is really important. My top three priorities have been

02:08 recruiting more police officers and we've now recruited 650 more police

02:12 officers so there's more people now working in sites like this police

02:15 station right in the middle of Portsmouth. Secondly it's been to

02:19 increase the visibility of the police so that means having more police stations,

02:22 front counters and having the police out on foot and the Chief Constable has

02:25 introduced new town centre teams to tackle shoplifting and again to make the

02:29 police more visible. I've introduced local bobbies, I've brought back the

02:33 local bobbies so that local communities have now got their named local police

02:36 officer phone number, email address and name accessible through the Conservatory's

02:40 website. So this really now, the third one, is getting people connected back to

02:45 their police service. For me these are really basic things that taxpayers have

02:48 a right to expect from their police force. What changes will people

02:53 notice in the station now that it's reopened? So this is one of our most

02:57 important police stations in the police estate. Working from here you've got

03:00 missing and exploited teams, you've got neighbourhood teams, you've got

03:03 occasionally the response patrol teams who are responding to 101 and 999 calls

03:07 and also there will be detectives working from here as well and they do

03:10 occasionally pop in if they're not at the police investigation centre in

03:13 Hilsey. So you can see that this is a really important site but the most

03:17 important thing for the public is the fact they can come through the door, it's

03:20 completely disability friendly so disabled people can come in here

03:23 too and there are quiet spaces that people need to be able to speak to a

03:27 police officer or a police staff member on a much more discreet, confidential

03:30 basis. And lastly I know that today we've got the station opening here in the city

03:37 centre but also another one in Parkgate. How does reopening police stations

03:42 tie into your longer-term strategy as Commissioner? Well I consulted with the

03:47 public before I set my priorities that I've been delivering over the last three

03:50 years that I've been the Police and Crime Commissioner and one of the things

03:53 the public said to me was we don't see the police enough, there aren't enough

03:57 police officers and all the police stations have closed. Now to me these are

04:00 the basic fundamentals that taxpayers expect to get from me as their Police

04:04 and Crime Commissioner and from their police service and so that's why opening

04:08 up front counters, putting police stations back in more visible and more

04:13 accessible locations has been important. But what's also really key is that

04:16 people that work in police stations that have front counters, the desk staff, the

04:20 front desk staff, they are also processing a whole load of other

04:23 information as well. So if perhaps there's only a handful of people that

04:26 might come into a police station in a two or three hour period they are still

04:30 helping to process crimes that are being committed, sorry, they are still

04:34 helping to process crimes that are being reported through the constabulary website

04:37 as well. So this is a really multifaceted front counter across all of our police

04:42 estate and we've got more to come in the autumn as well that we're opening.

04:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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