POLICE RENT ROOMS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31135, 11 August 1966, Page 1

POLICE RENT ROOMS

The Christchurch police have rented the first floor and a room in the basement of the Lyttelton Harbour Board’s building in Madras street.

The moving of three sections of the police to the Harbour Board building will relieve pressure in the ancient central station and district headquarters building in Hereford street. The secretary-manager of the Harbour Board (Mr A. J. Sowden) said yesterday that the police would not occupy the first floor immediately because considerable partitioning had to be done. An oil company in the building had vacated the floor but would continue to occupy two other floors.

The police have leased the space for five years, with right of renewal. The officer in charge of the Christchurch police district (Chief Superintendent G. W. Alty) said that the additional area in the Harbour Board building would provide sorely needed space at Hereford street for the expansion of operational units at the Central police station. He said that the public would be advised well in advance of the' move to the harbour building so they would be well aware of where to make inquiries. Although negotiations have progressed, no settlement on price has been reached by the Ministry of Works and Y.M.C.A. for the purchase of the Y.M.C.A. building on the corner of Hereford street and Cambridge terrace. This building will be

demolished to make way for the multi-storey administration block at the new Central police station. The administration olock will be built first, then a barracks-gymnasium - muster hall block at the corner of Montreal and Hereford streets. The new Central police station will be built between these two blocks, on the Hereford street frontage. A new cell block will contain 60 cells. It will take at least five years for these new buildings to be erected. In the meantime, on occasions there is almost standing room only in the existing cell block; the telephone exchange can scarcely cope with the peak number of calls and the communications office and teleprinter rooms are very cramped. In the near future, the Gilbertian situation will be reached where approximately £lO,OOO will have to be spent on extensions to the old buildings—to be demolished to make way for the new ones planned.