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Jersey’s Police Chief gave the media a sneak peek of his new HQ yesterday.
The force are due to move into the purpose-built £22million five-storey building at the eastern entrance to the tunnel adjoining Green Street multi-storey car park early next year, but keen to update Islanders on progress Mike Bowron staged a special “open viewing.”
Jersey’s Police force currently operate out of a number of premises in St Helier, the most prominent being at Rouge Bouillon. It's a modified arsenal with additions tagged on over the years. When it became too small the force acquired the nearby building which was once a girls’ school. There are also outposts at Summerland and Hill Street. The idea is to consolidate the various branches into this new building.
Nearly £15million pounds of funding for the project has come from the Proceeds of Crime Fund. Chief of Police Mike Bowron said: "It is soon to be possible to see the new police station fully functioning and heartening to know that over half the funding for it came from the proceeds of crime."
It’s a large building, on a complex site. A total of 266 piles have been driven 12 metres into the ground to support the building, and more than 1,000 tonnes of steel and roughly 4,500 cubic metres of concrete have been used in the construction.
Most of the building is office space. There’s a charging suite on the ground floor, and below that 22 holding cells. Special blast plates and reinforced pillars have been incorporated into the scheme in case the building should be bombed.
Vehicle access off Route du Fort is provided both to the custody suite at ground floor level and to the basement parking. As part of the project, an extension to the top level of Green Street multi-storey car park has been constructed to replace an open car park area.
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