The dusty, dark and forgotten rooms inside a building overlooked by thousands each day on the streets of Greater Manchester, where if you look closely enough, several doors still lead to the basement cells of an old Victorian county police station. Abandoned in the early 90's after Margaret Thatcher proposed that all local stations merge into regional bases to severely reduce costs, its closure was part of the restructure of the police forces around the country that would change the public service sector entirely. Originally, and for a long time stations like this were purposefully kept as a way for the community to remain connected with their local 'beat' and could only keep a small handful of criminals temporarily overnight. The ones that are still standing are reminiscent of a time when local policing was a much more intimate affair.
‘Bobby’ (derived from the early London slang for police officer) and ‘Beat’ (based on traditional policing from the same early era that utilised the close relationship with the community members within the assigned ‘beat’, meaning a territory and time that a police officer patrols). The disappearance of this local station may have seen like the definition of the end of the ‘beat’ in the 90’s for the local community, yet evidence has continued to mount that indicates that this was only the beginning. The number of police stations open to the public has almost halved in the last seven years, whilst nearly 400 front counters have been shut across England and Wales. (Figures from 31 out of 43 forces showed a fall from 901 open counters in 2010 to 510 as of March last year) . The government claims to be under increasing pressure to secure adequate policing with little to no budget, which stands to reason why the Metropolitan Police sold off almost £1 billion in London property in the last five years, including 24 police stations. Greater Manchester Police continued to close down its stations after this particular example, having slashed numbers in half from 22 to 11 in recent years.
Public reaction, however has always remained the same, that the decision to close large numbers of traditional 'blue lamp' stations leaves their communities vulnerable. In many ways, the closures sounded the death knell for the ‘bobby on the beat’. Relationships between police officers and rural communities had traditionally been very strong throughout the last century, and people used to know the name of their local ‘bobby’ and where to find them. Once that face-to-face contact was gone they have been left feeling abandoned and vulnerable, and confidence in our police forces has slowly dwindled. Younger generations now only ever see police in moving vehicles or when called out to emergency situations, and these buildings where you might confront an officer over a counter are now long in the past for most of us.
This is clearly a problem that is showing no signs of slowing down; with police forces across the country still selling their expensive Victorian police station buildings and renting cheaper offices to be used as police points in supermarkets, fire stations and even golf clubs, yet sometimes the gamble simply doesn’t pay off. This county police station was never sold, and never re-purposed, leaving it derelict and disused for two decades. The only purpose it serves now is as a canvas for local venues to display their posters. The motivational, witty wall banners inside are no longer there for the public to see, and it seems destined to remain that way.
