The on-again, off-again plan to relocate Canberra's police headquarters is back on the ACT government agenda, with a new feasibility study announced in the ACT budget.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ACT government will spend $687,000 to assess the future relocation of both the Winchester Police Centre and the Gungahlin police station.
The former ACT technical training school on Benjamin Way, which was repurposed as the headquarters for ACT Policing and reopened in 1994, sits on ACT government land prime for redevelopment.
The last commercial sizeable parcel of development land sold in Belconnen was Block 2, Section 200. This 16,300 square metre site was sold to NG Land Holdings - part of the Geocon Group - for $22.1 million in mid-2015.
That block is now Geocon's The Republic precinct, the largest mixed-used development in Belconnen.
The Winchester site, and the soon-to-be-closed Traffic Operations Centre behind it on Lathlain Street, are leased through an arrangement with the Justice and Community Safety directorate.
Former chief police officer Roman Quaedvlieg had been a strong advocate for relocating the police headquarters back in 2013 and negotiations had proceeded as far as identifying alternative buildings.
One of these alternatives was the modern Equinox business complex in Deakin. However, that plan was scuppered due to undisclosed security issues.
Built in the late 1960s, the ageing Belconnen headquarters of ACT police has been fraught with heating and ventilation issues and a little over 12 months ago during the infamous January 20 hailstorm, the roof leaked so badly the intelligence area had to be abandoned due to an extreme electrical hazard.
Other areas of the building, such as the media and marketing room and the operations room, also leaked badly and computer equipment was shut down to prevent an incident.
The Winchester Police Centre, so named after late assistant commissioner Colin Winchester who was murdered in a Deakin driveway in 1989, sits on land that occupies almost a full city block of about two hectares with frontages on four streets. The new Belconnen Police Station, opened in 2012, occupies one corner. Most of the land is car parking.
The building is not just the administrative headquarters for the ACT's community police force, but also houses the all-important Operations Centre, which dispatches and monitors all police operational activity in the territory, as well as police attendance and Crime Stoppers calls.
Also operating out of the building is the drug vault, specialist crime teams, intelligence teams, public relations, logistics and various administration teams. It is also the monitoring centre for much of the CCTV security cameras located around the city.
While the headquarters remains operationally suitable for police despite its many issues, the over-arching interest from an ACT government perspective would be in the value of the prime land on which the property sits given its close proximity to the Belconnen Markets, now under redevelopment, the enormous Bunnings warehouse, the Belconnen Town Centre and Emu Bank.
The director general of the Justice and Community Safety directorate, Richard Glenn, said the government was not committed to a sell-off of the Belconnen property.
"What we're asking for are options to redevelop at the same site, or to look for alternate sites," Mr Glenn said.
"There are some criteria around that as to the amount of space needed and there are police and security issues which go along with that."
The police association has lobbied heavily to see both sites reassessed, and welcomed the feasibility study.
Association president Alex Caruana said he supported the need for a new police headquarters and believed the feasibility study "will greatly assist in how that building will look and what capabilities will be working out of that building".
"Location-wise, it would be beneficial for a more central location within the ACT and we would support a move away from the current building if a more 'fit for purpose' building was developed," he said.
"The AFPA would support that current capabilities, such as Operations and the Police Operations Centre within the Winchester Police Centre are transitioned into a new building."
