125 stations axed since creation of Police Scotland
MORE than 120 police stations and offices have shut across the country since Police Scotland was formed six years ago.
The string of closures has taken place since the service was created by merging the eight regional forces.
At the time, then-Chief Constable Stephen House said it would focus ‘far more’ on ‘administration and back office buildings’ in terms of downsizing its estate.
However, since Police Scotland was officially launched on April 1 2013, a total of 125 police stations and offices have shut down.
The worst-hit area is the Highlands, with 19 closures.
The loss of the facilities was last night condemned by opposition politicians who stressed the importance of having a ‘visible presence on the ground’.
Aberdeen was the second worstaffected council area, with 14 closures, including some in the city’s poorest communities.
Lewis Macdonald, Labour MSP for the North East, said: ‘It is particularly alarming to see some of these closures taking place in some of the most vulnerable communities in Aberdeen, where having a visible presence on the ground is arguably the most important.
‘For older people or those who may feel vulnerable or threatened, being able to speak to a person face to face makes all the difference. I don’t take the view that police should never close offices, but I think it’s really important that communities can still feel confident and have easy access to the police when they need it.’
Other areas hit by closures include Aberdeenshire, which has
‘Particularly alarming’
lost five, Moray with two, four in Shetland, one in Orkney, three in Argyll and Bute and four in the Western Isles.
Tory Highlands and Islands MSP Donald Cameron called it ‘further evidence that Nicola Sturgeon’s centralising government simply doesn’t care about rural Scotland’. Last week, the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), representing rank and file officers, said community relations with the force could be put back ‘for at least a decade’ if Police Scotland is forced to make year-on-year cuts.
SPF general secretary Calum Steele described the funding settlement for the force as ‘woeful’ and claimed criticism from frontline officers was becoming ‘more vocal and pointed’.
Scotland’s policing budget fell from £1.2billion in 2012-13 to £987million in 2015-16.
A spokesman for Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said: ‘We will take no lectures from the Tories, who have presided over a catastrophic fall of more than 19,000 in police officer numbers in England and Wales since 2007, while here in Scotland the SNP Government has ensured numbers remain at historically high levels.’
Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr claimed that buildings had been closed for ‘strategic’ reasons. He said: ‘The policing estate has been built up over the course of several decades and some buildings are no longer in the right place or operationally fit for purpose.
‘We do understand how important local police presence is to communities, and our estates strategy details our intention to increase community bases for local officers while identifying more opportunities to share locations with key partners.
‘We are also increasingly enabling officers to spend more time out in communities.’