Tories want review of police HQ in face of cuts to thin blue line

Humberside Police is facing cuts of £30m over the next two years, with murder squad detectives among those to be hit.

Hull councillor John Abbott wants the council’s chief executive Nicola Yates to write to Humberside Police Authority to seek assurances that spending on the building will not affect the provision of front-line staff.

Coun Abbott said the decision taken by the authority last week both to approve a new redundancy policy and medium term financial strategy including the millions of pounds spending on the new HQ were “inconsistent.”

The HQ with a 40-cell custody suite on a former gasworks site on Clough Road will replace Queens Gardens police station in the city centre by 2013.

A prominent new landmark, the four-storey building, which gained planning permission last year, will incorporate many energy-saving features. The custody suite will have a green roof, and the building’s bills will be cut through the use of photovoltaic panels, which react to light, three small wind turbines in the car park and a biomass boiler.

Chief Constable Tim Hollis said last week the loss of 139 officers and 92 support staff from Humberside Police by March 2012 was the start of a series of cuts which would impact on operational policing.

Tory group leader John Fareham said: “While they are losing policemen and PCSOs, why don’t they cut down police overtime first?

“There’s lots of things that could be done.

“If we have to choose between a shiny new building and effective policing on the streets I know which side I am on.”

Coun Fareham said he had little time for the police’s explanation that they needed a new custody suite. “I don’t care what they come up with – it’s all public money at the end of the day.

“We pay our taxes to be protected from miscreants, we don’t pay our taxes for them to be running round spending our money on buildings.

“I am aware that the Home Office requires them to have new cells, but the new cells could be built without the offices for administration staff, glass towers and balconies.”

The building of the new headquarters will mean the closure not only of Queens Gardens police station, but also Tower Grange on Holderness Road, buildings which are “money pits” according to chairman of the police authority Coun Chris Matthews.

Coun Matthews denied the building was a vanity scheme and said building a custody suite on its own would cost £17m.

He said: “We have spent £6m on it already, that’s the purchase of the land and everything else. What you have to consider is that the buildings it is going to replace are basically money pits. It’s like running a 15-year-old car that goes into the garage every week and does 25mph a gallon.

“It will provide a more efficient building and will be carbon neutral from the start.

“If we were looking at compulsory redundancy I couldn’t support this project but we are not looking at that. What we are looking at is basically reducing staff through natural wastage when people retire.”

Councillors will agree the successful contractor at a meeting on March 22.

The building will be financed by borrowing over 30 years but Coun Matthews said it would save money in the long run. “We are not looking at short-term gains we have had policing for 175 years, we are planning for the future. It is exactly what the Home Office are telling us to do.”

In May the police authority approved spending an extra £7m on the building, to house staff and facilities from other police stations, including Tower Grange.

Humberside Police declined to comment.