What became of London’s recently closed police stations?
With new Prime Minister Boris Johnson focusing on a “week of law and order” and announcing plans to hire thousands more police officers in coming years it’s timely to look at what’s happened to police stations that closed in recent years across south east London.
One big and obvious question with any announcement is just where any additional officers hired will go with a number of police stations closed since 2010.
One of the largest to close in south east London was Greenwich. The site now sees plans for a housing development with 63 flats proposed. The building ceased operation in 2016.
Another former police station is Woolwich which closed in 2014. Once again, housing is the result. Unlike Greenwich the building was converted, with 22 flats the end result.
Westcombe Park was sold in 2012 for £770k – again to convert to housing.
Belvedere saw its police station close in 2013 with 26 flats now planned.
Sidcup also closed in 2013. It’s now a Prezzo restaurant.
A small station on Titmuss Avenue in Thamesmead closed in 2010.
There’s the irony here of Boris Johnson announcing more police whilst these closures occurred or begun under his watch while implementing funding cuts pushed by the Home Office of Teresa May and Chancellor George Osborne – now editing the Evening Standard which screams about bloodbaths and rising crime.
With closures came a loss of office space, vehicle yards and cells. Hiring more police might be the easy part. Where they’ll be based is not revealed in big headline grabbing announcements.
A full list of closures across London (up to late 2017) can be seen here.
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