New police site ready by 2020
THE way the Gold Coast is policed is continually evolving and by 2020, a step into the future of mobile policing will be closer.
A new warehouse-style building will house the Rapid Action Patrol group (RAP), about 100 officers, but it is expected to grow in size and force capability into the future.
It will be located at Arundel, smack bang in the middle of the Gold Coast police district, and is expected to be up and running by January 2020.
Sitting close to the M1 and the Smith St Motorway, it will be ideally placed to respond quickly to incidents or crime waves in any area of the Coast.
Acting Chief Superintendent Dave Cuskelly said discussions on how to boost the way the Gold Coast is policed started in 2016, and from that the new hub-style police building was born.
“It all started in 2016 when we started envisaging our strategic direction we want to hit in the next five, 10, 15 years and there were a couple of realisations we made. Our RAP lease at Varsity Lakes is finishing in early 2020 – that was one of the considerations,” Supt Cuskelly said.
“It (the Arundel site) will be multifunctional capability, incorporating the RAP. It will also have the potential to house a whole heap of things because of the unique type of template we’re going to choose for the flooring of it.
“It’s a large space. Although we’ve got over 100 people in the RAP, this has got the potential to accommodate up to twice that.”
But construction of the hub building and a move into the future of a more mobile policing force would not result in the closure of local police stations.
“This doesn’t mean the end of the traditional police station at all. There will always be a need for our community to