Supermarkets, libraries, a Costa Coffee shop and even Tottenham Hotspur’s football ground are being suggested as places where the public could go to report crime as a replacement for traditional police station front counters.
The radical idea to create “pop-up police stations” across north London has been put forward in a bid to save money. However critics say that basing police officers in commercial properties is injudicious and culturally insensitive.
Boris Johnson with Met police officers
Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Craig Mackey, says that public use of many police station counters is too low to rationalize their cost. Counter closures are, he says, a necessary part of the Met’s effort to make £500m in cut backs as well as close a £233m funding gap.
Scotland Yard chiefs have been debating the “pop-up” scheme for the past six weeks and it will be considered in January by the London Mayor Boris Johnson and his deputy for policing Stephen Greenhalgh.
There are concerns that victims will be less likely to come forward to such public locations. Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy told The Times;
“This is not the environment in which you expect victims to be sharing the space with people drinking lattes. It’s a serious public service that requires serious public premises.”
In Golders Green, a predominantly Jewish area of north-west London, a pop-up police station could be created at a neighbourhood base for two days a week including Saturdays – the Shabbat day in Jewish culture.
London Assembly member for Barnet, Andrew Dinsmore said: “It’s hardly the most convenient day for Jewish people. It shows a degree of cultural insensitivity.”
One chief constable told The Daily Telegraph that the police would have to depend largely on special constables and other civilian volunteers to help safeguard the public in the wake of budget cuts.
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