Tesco charged with building £7m police station
Tesco has begun construction of a new £7m police station as part of a £200m redevelopment of West Bromwich town centre.
The 55,500 sq ft West Midlands Police Local Command Unit, on land between Oak Lane and Moor Street, will provide a new home for the existing police station, which is currently situated on New Street.
It has been designed in conjunction with West Midlands Police and links in with a Tesco retail development in West Bromwich town centre.
Foundations have been laid and main contractor, Britannia Construction, has started work. The three storey building is expected to be completed in mid-2011.
The regeneration scheme, which will be delivered in two phases, will provide a 140,000 sq ft Tesco store and petrol station, with an additional 220,000 sq ft of other retail and leisure space.
A second phase will provide 165,000 sq ft of retail, a 70-bedroom hotel, additional car parking and a new northern ringway.
Ian Jones, Sandwell’s cabinet member for jobs and economy, said: “The new police station is a key part of the Tesco retail development as well as the wider regeneration of West Bromwich.
“For that reason it is fantastic to see work progressing at such a rate. West Bromwich has a very bright future and this is just one part of the ongoing redevelopment of the town centre.”
Sandwell chief superintendent Steve Dugmore said: “All of our staff are looking forward to the relocation. The new complex will contain state-of-the-art policing equipment, enabling us to further serve our communities.”
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I already seen Tesco are funding some police cars.
Now they’re funding a police station.
All very nice propaganda to make sure we let them build as many Tescos here as they like.
But this is a serious conflict of interest. We CANNOT have companies funding the police. What happens if there is a police investigation into Tesco? Can we trust it will be unbiased?
And what happens when Tesco funds so much, that the govenment starts funding the police less, because they notice that the police are already getting handouts by Tesco?
This is a very slippery slope. We should not have monopoly supermarkets being ‘do gooders’, in propaganda like this, it’s leaves a bad taste at the moment, and will leave an even worse one in the future, when the police have to be funded by more companies.
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