In a late night debate in Parliament yesterday, Theresa Villiers MP stepped up her six year campaign to save Barnet police station from being sold off for redevelopment.
Its front counter closed to the public in 2017, after the Mayor of London announced that he would shut Barnet and 36 other police stations around the capital. But the building has remained in use by police officers.
This debate comes in the wake of a u-turn by the Mayor on Uxbridge police station. Also earmarked for sell-off in 2017, Mayor Khan recently indicated that he no longer believed this should happen. This comes in the lead up to polling day in the crucial by election taking place in Uxbridge.
The Barnet MP told Parliament: “It would be massively cynical if the Mayor’s u-turn were to be confined to just to Uxbridge.
I therefore take this opportunity once again to call on Mayor Khan to remove the threat to Barnet police station and confirm that its future is secure, along with other stations under threat around the capital.”
Theresa went on to say “When a plan to close Barnet police station was first floated in 2013, I fought successfully to stop it. I saved our police station back then and I’m doing all I can to save it again.
I’ve raised this issue in Parliament many times including twice at Prime Minister’s questions. The online version of the petition on this issue which I presented to Parliament last year now has more than 1600 signatures...
I will continue do all I can to resist the Mayor threat to our local police station. So that my constituents are safer and more secure and can have the visible police presence in their local town centre that they rightly believe is so important.”
In her speech, Theresa highlighted changed circumstances since the 2017 closure announcements. These include the Casey report on the Met which concluded that the combined impact of various measures, including police station closures, had led to a more dispersed and hands-off training experience for new recruits and existing personnel which gives them less of a sense of belonging to the Met; greater distances for response officers and neighbourhood police teams to travel; and fewer points of accessible contact for the public.
“At a time when culture and conduct at the Met has come under huge scrutiny,” Theresa said “we should not be persisting with disposals from the police station estate calculated to make officers less connected to one another, more isolated, and more distant from the communities they serve.”
The Hansard report of the debate can be read here.
