Two Parish Councils ask PCC to consider city centre brownfield site for new police station

The Durnford and Woodford Parish Councils are both asking the Police & Crime Commissioner to consider land known as the Engine Sheds, a brownfield site adjacent to the railway station in the heart of Salisbury, for the proposed new police station.

The 3.75-acre site is owned by Wiltshire Council and is at the upper end of the size of site the PCC is looking for, offering room for expansion down the line.

Among the Engine Shed site’s many benefits are:

  • It integrates the police station with the city
  • It is close to the law courts
  • It is in the centre of town giving easy access for the public
  • Many staff – police officers and support staff - would be able to walk or cycle to work safely
  • Staff living more remotely could travel to work by train
  • Officers on the beat could walk and cycle around the city
  • It provides easy access to the entire Salisbury Division – north, south, east and west
  • It fulfils all the primary criteria set out by the PCC being secure, self-contained and big enough
  • It provides room for expansion such as a new custody suite – earmarked for this exact site in 2014 but not built https://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/documents/s73364/c%20Police%20Update.pdf [page 3].
  • It meets the Government’s preference for brownfield over greenfield development, making it an ideal flagship model of urban regeneration
  • It is owned by Wiltshire Council
  • It is close to the old police station on Wilton Road
  • Work could start quickly - it is already designated as development land in the current local plan. A new local plan is now not expected until at least 2025.

Peter Curtis, on behalf of the joint parish councils of Durnford and Woodford, says: “Salisbury and the surrounding areas need a police station centrally located within the community so that its officers can easily and efficiently access the whole Divisional area. This Engine Shed site delivers that. If supermarkets selling food can be built on former brownfield sites, then there’s no reason why we can’t have a police station on one. It’s environmentally advantageous, it offers real community policing, and it’s available now.”

Support for a new police station in the centre of Salisbury also comes from the leader of Wiltshire Council Richard Clewer. At a Meet the Leader event in Amesbury on Friday 4th November, he discussed the Engine Shed site’s many merits and confirmed it was possible to build on the contaminated land.

Referring to proposals to build a new police station on a greenfield site, four miles north of Salisbury at High Post on the A345, Mr Clewer expressed concern about how effective such remote policing would be for Salisbury.

Mr Clewer acknowledged that the Wiltshire Council funded Atkins report last year found the A345 “at capacity” into Salisbury and Amesbury at peak times and that siting a police station at High Post would materially adversely affect police response times. He also acknowledged that any new building at High Post would remove farmland from food production, unlike building at the Engine Shed site.

A planning application for a business park at High Post was withdrawn earlier this year after considerable opposition, where just one of the 14 formal Wiltshire Council Consultees was in favour; including from the Highways Department which said development at the site would be contrary to Wiltshire Councils’s core policies 60, 61 and 62 (which cover sustainability, new development and transport). These objections cast doubt on the prospects of any new application for a police station there.

The Joint Durnford and Woodford Parish Councils urge the PCC and Wiltshire Council to start exploring this site and as Strategic Partners to agree a mutually beneficial price. Working together should reflect the stated wishes of both parties that a new police facility should be within the City of Salisbury and not remote from it.