Unanswered questions over the loss of our police station

IT’S not exactly a surprise that Salisbury is to lose its police station. But it is a cause for concern while some questions remain unanswered.

The writing has been on the wall ever since it was suggested that the neighbourhood policing team might move into the community campus which is to be developed at Five Rivers leisure centre.

And when plans to open a University Technical College were announced, all became clear. A key requirement was that it had to be easily accessible from the railway station, and large enough sites weren’t exactly ten a penny.

Yet the authorities said very little in public about these issues, even when negotiations must have been at an advanced stage.

I’m sure some police functions can be housed, as the force suggests, within Wiltshire Council premises such as the library and Bourne Hill. With all the council job cuts going on, there’s bound to be plenty of spare space.

But then isn’t the library itself supposed to be moved when the Maltings/Central Car Park redevelopment gets going? What then?

We are told that 999 crews will be ‘temporarily’ based in Amesbury. It will be interesting to keep an eye on response times.

The fire service has had to reinstate full-time officers at Amesbury after wrongly imagining that it could react just as well to emergencies with reduced cover. What makes the police think it will work out better for them?

In due course, says the force, the 999 teams could move to the community campus. Well, just how big is this community campus going to be?

The extension to Five Rivers, as currently proposed, is going to swallow up 40 of the current leisure centre’s parking spaces. Yet more and more people will be going there to access essential services.

Wiltshire Council bosses have promised to fund some kind of shuttle bus to and from the city centre. I wonder whether that will survive the next round of spending cuts?

And even if it does, will people be willing to pay the council’s exorbitant parking charges just to leave their cars in town and hop on a bus to get to where they really want to be?

Perhaps they’ll take a bus in from home instead, and then another from town, instead of just taking the car to Five Rivers?

Of course they won’t. They’ll park in the roads around the leisure centre, residents will be in uproar and the traffic wardens will have a field day. The resulting fines might even fill all the holes in the council’s budget.

But above all, where are the police going to find cells in which to lock up miscreants for the night?

The new courts were built conveniently next to the police station, which now seems a bit of a wasted effort.

Apparently “options for providing custody within South Wiltshire” are being explored. Oh, that’s all right, then.