New Scotland Yard faces being sold

New Scotland Yard faces being sold under sweeping budget cuts


The current headquarters of Britain's biggest police force at New Scotland Yard could be sold as part of sweeping budget cuts of more than £500 million, it emerged today.








New Scotland Yard has been in its current location since 1967 and its revolving sign, is considered one of the capital's most recognisable landmarks. Photo: PA






By Andrew Hough

12:00PM GMT 30 Oct 2012





The Metropolitan Police announced surprise plans to sell the leading central London landmark, which has been its home for almost half a century.


Senior officers said the force could save up to £6.5 million a year by moving to a smaller building around the corner.


The radical fire-sale plans are part of drastic budget cuts that will also involve axing dozens of police stations and buildings across the capital.


Plans to close another five police stations have been approved so far and there are proposals to shut 61 ''front counter'' services, according to Craig Mackey, the Met Police Deputy Commissioner.


New Scotland Yard has been in its current location in Victoria Street since 1967 and its building, complete with its revolving sign, is considered one of the capital's most recognisable landmarks.



Thousands of PCSOs face axe in police cuts

• 14 Oct 2012
  

The famous sign performs over 14,000 revolutions every day.

Mr Mackey said it would take an investment of around £50 million to modernise the building, which is surrounded by concrete blast barriers to protect it from terrorist attack.

He said that, as the force faces staff cuts, there will also be more and more space at the site, which is ''an expensive luxury'' in central London.

''It's an expensive building to run and it's an expensive building to maintain and as we go through this change programme it's going to have space in it that we don't need," he told the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime.

"In central London that's an expensive luxury.

"It is a 60s building, so the infrastructure and support services that are in the building, I think, from the heating and ventilation through to the IT provision, is from the 60s."

He added: "Despite the money we've spent on it over the years, it is an asset that we could use differently and better invest the money in policing."

Mr Mackey argued that reducing the number of supervisors and senior ranking officers would allow the Met to invest in more police constables on the beat.

"Core policing will still be delivered locally with more officers in neighbourhood policing," he said. "But no decisions have been made on any of these proposals."

He told the deputy mayor for policing and crime, Stephen Greenhalgh, that if significant savings were to be made then a third of the Met's property estate needed to be disposed of.

Currently, it has about 700 buildings including police stations, patrol bases and traffic garages.

John Tully, the Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the sale of New Scotland Yard was like losing the Crown Jewels.

"It's very regrettable that it's come to this," he said.

"Clearly it's a building of age and it's got upkeep costs, but the old police authority and now Mopac have had a consistent policy of selling off property and they've now reached the Crown Jewels.

"An iconic building like New Scotland Yard is going to bite the dust.

"Thousands of people work at New Scotland Yard and it seems to me that there will be a lot of incremental costs to relocate people."

The force paid £124.5 million for the building in 2008 and it costs £11 million per year to run. Property industry sources say the building could fetch as much as £150 million.

The Met's budget plans were presented today before being considered by the London assembly with police chiefs stressing they for consultation. A final decision is expected next month.

It is expected that the move will take around two years once approvals are in place.

The Met is said to have identified a site near Whitehall, which would house between 600 and 800 staff, which is less than at its current site next to St James's Park Underground station.

The Curtis Green building on the Embankment is the former headquarters of Territorial Policing and was once the site of Canon Row police station.

The force is attempting to save more than £500 million from its annual budget of £3.6bn by 2015 in the wake of government cuts.

The five police stations that are to close are South Norwood, Richmond, Highbury Vale, Walthamstow and Willesden Green.

Met bosses are also shutting 61 counter services – some of which only receive a handful of visitors per day.

Boris Johnson, the London's mayor, promised at this years elections to maintain police officer numbers to about 32,000.

Mr Mackey added: “We want to have a greater presence in London’s communities and relocate our officers in popular locations.

"Our objective is to make sure that, that underused front counters are replaced by at least three new front counters if they are closed.

“We want to end up in places that are most accessible to Londoners."

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SURPRISED TO HEAR ON NEWS

Very surprised since they are and still are spending millions on a missing child that most off think is dead yet they are a billion in debt.

So are the police being going to be instructed to work from home?

What a scandalous state of affairs when after selling the family silver, we are now selling off the very structures of our society, yet for each and every day that passes, our trusted parliamentary representatives who WE elected to look after OUR interests give £37 million to the pimps, degenerates and crooks of the European community.

Have you not heard the news today that they will be working at supermarkets !

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/903972-police-officers-to-open-counters-in-supermarkets-if-stations-close

Maybe that will help to reduce the level of shoplifting in supermarkets! People will think twice about doing it literally under the noses of the police.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/902022-undercover-police-officers-given-permission-to-have-sex-with-suspects

Undercover police officers given permission to have sex with suspects
Undercover police officers are permitted to have sex with suspected criminals, a minister has said.


Police officers were allowed to sleep with those they were sent to spy on because it would help them fit in and avoid detection, policing minister Nick Herbert told MPs.
He said it was within the rules set out for undercover operations but he was more concerned that ‘there is a general structure and system of proper oversight’.
But his claims outraged senior officers, who said it was ‘morally wrong’ and ‘absolutely not authorised’ to have sex with ‘targets’.
Green party MP Caroline Lucas, who is calling for a public inquiry, said the problem was not being taken seriously.
She added: ‘We need to ask ourselves if ruining the lives of women in this way – potentially breaching their human rights – is an acceptable method of gathering information.’
The issue has come under the spotlight since last year when a case against environmental activists in Nottinghamshire collapsed because undercover officer Mark Kennedy had sexual relationships with two of the women involved.
Eight other women are suing the police, saying their lives were ruined because they were duped into having sex with undercover officers.
But Mr Herbert insisted criminals would easily spot a police mole if he refused to have sex with them.
Jon Murphy, chief constable of Merseyside and head of crime business area for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: ‘It is never acceptable under any circumstances for them to engage in sex with any subject they come into contact with.


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/902022-undercover-police-officers-given-permission-to-have-sex-with-suspects#ixzz2AuNm6ojh

It's enough to make you weep that these cretins in Parliament can even be discussing the matter.!!!!!!!!! There is a word for what they are suggesting "entrapment". What with Scotland Yard being sold, Middle East billionaires buying up all they can , including a stake in British Airways .....someone will want to buy the Crown Jewels and the Tower of London next. I blame the Banks most of all , for easy credit all these years,Bank of England next for ineptitude by not monitoring the situation and using "quantitive easing" too often and successive Governments for lack of immigration control all these years



GreenWorld (BVI)

Today 04:49 AM




Gosh, only now, after almost 400 billion Pounds has been printed, have they figured out that QE is counterproductive. Really?

I've come to the conclusion that many of the people commenting here on the DT finance article boards are better qualified to run an economy then half the clowns at the BOE.

=======================================

I just read this on the comment section of the Article in the Bl***y banks thread....great minds think alike.LOL.

I WOULD PUT FORWARD MY SERVICES TO PUT THE COUNTRY RIGHT,HAVE BEEN AT UNIVERSITY OF LIFE.

Badboy wrote:I WOULD PUT FORWARD MY SERVICES TO PUT THE COUNTRY RIGHT,HAVE BEEN AT UNIVERSITY OF LIFE.

Go on then Badboy, write to Cameron and ask him at the same time why he hasn't curtailed the number of immigrants .LOL