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By Sarah Ward
The former station pictured last month
In December it will be five years since Corby’s police station in Elizabeth Street was closed. Kettering’s police station in London Road was shut a year later. A decision by Police crime commissioner Stephen Mold as part of a strategy to shrink and remodel the force’s estate buildings (which stood at 39 sites in 2018) the closures followed those others across the county.
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In the north of the county the northern accommodation building opened in Kettering just off the A6003 in 2017 and last year a new £12.4m fire and police headquarters was opened in Wellingborough, however both are closed off to members of the public for general crime reporting purposes and the former police stations in two of the county’s largest towns remain unsold and somewhat neglected.
This summer the former Corby station, first built in the 1950s during Corby’s boom years, has grown ever more shabby as the weeds have continued to grow and NN Journal was alerted by a resident to graffiti that has been sprayed onto Kettering’s empty station.
Kettering’s old station. The graffiti has now been removed.
We contacted commissioner Mold’s office and were told:
“Corby Police Station was sold subject to contract in March 2020 but after some time, the buyer was unable to complete the purchase. The property is now sold subject to contract to a different buyer, and we are hopeful that we will shortly exchange contracts on the sale.
“The area is mown and weeded around once a quarter, and that is due to happen imminently.
“There are several connected public sector buildings on London Road in Kettering, the police station owned by the Commissioner and other connected buildings under two different owners, one being North Northamptonshire Council. We are working closely with the council to deal with the issues that this raises, around access for example, as we push forward with a sale.”
“The police station remains for sale, a previous potential purchase having fallen through.
A Freedom of Information request made to the force in March 2020 details six police station closures in Northants since 2012. Stations at Oundle, Towcester and Brackley closed that year followed by the Campbell Square station in Northampton in 2015 and then the Corby and Kettering stations.
2012 was the year that the office of police and crime commissioners were created, with the remit of being the voice of the public and holding the force to account in a bid to drive up standards.
Elected politicians, they also have control of the purse strings and assets. Northamptonshire’s first police crime commissioner Adam Simmons had proposed to sell off the current headquarters at Wootton Hall, Northampton, signing off the final details just before he stood down in 2016, but his decision was reversed by Mold when he got the job.
The 2018-2030 estates strategy (now superseded by the 2020-2040 strategy) had selling off surplus buildings as a key plank of its plan, saying that the estate had been under invested in for many years and was no longer fit for purposes of modern day policing.
It said:
Wherever possible the intention will be to maximise capital receipts from surplus buildings, reinvesting a significant portion of the receipt back into the estate to drive out further savings. This is reflected in the strategic ambitions section.
We asked commissioner Mold’s office how much the organisation had gained from the sale of buildings over the past five years.
They said:
“Just under £4m has been received in capital receipts since 2017. The receipts were used to offset the cost of capital programme expenditure and minimise the capital financing cost on the Police revenue budget each year.
“The sale of the buildings since 2017 have provided annual savings totalling almost £230K per annum from utilities and running costs on the revenue budget.
The latest estates strategy proposes more shared buildings with the fire service, and a further rationalisation of buildings following a review of the usage. There will be a focus on sharing desks, working from outside the office and use of mobile technology.
The commissioner’s office said:
“This is a vision for the period 2020-2040 and aims to provide an affordable estate that supports the work of both services in keeping communities safe and modern and sustainable places for people to work as they serve the community.
“The strategy is reviewed regularly because circumstances change: at the beginning of 2020, it would have been impossible to predict the pandemic and its subsequent impact, for example.
“Those circumstances have had an impact on the estates strategy and the commissioner is challenging both organisations to do more to streamline the estate, share even more and make our buildings more sustainable.
Selling buildings owned the police force only brings in revenue once. Carrying out any conversion necessary and renting the space out brings, in a longer term, continuous and often higher income.
Selling buildings owned the police force only brings in revenue once. Carrying out any conversion necessary and renting the space out brings, in a longer term, continuous and often higher income.