Update: New Scotland Yard is Sold.
Apparently a buyer for the New Scotland Yard building has been found. They are now in the process of exchanging contracts.
The cynic in me thinks that £250Million is potentially going down the drain!!!
Met Police Service has been hiring overpriced consultants who are unable to deliver the goods. Not all the faults of the consultants, mind you.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent on these consultants to troubleshoot processes to make way for a simpler and easier protocols. Unfortunately the consultants are working with human beings who thinks themselves as dinosaurs, i.e. not responsive to change!
Money gone, what is next?
Well when they’ve spent all the monies, perhaps they can sell the Parliament buildings and Buckingham Palace! hehehe
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New Scotland Yard For Sale
It is official!!!
Ten Broadway or officially known as the New Scotland Yard (NSY), located across Broadway from St James’s Park Underground (Tube) Station and near Victoria Station is now on the market for sale at £250 Million, or to the nearest best offer and the sale is expected to be concluded by the end of this year.
I do hope that this has been properly thought of before this current development has been applied.
After all it is a moot point to consider that the population is growing exponentially and crime is growing proportionally with it. NSY was bought about five years ago from it’s banking landlord for over £100 million. If it is sold for £250 million price tag, the profit will be used to update IT , existing buildings and we hope more police. The new HQ will be at the Curtis Green Building , Victoria Embankment, Westminster not far from Downing Street. This building will hold about half of the current number of staff at NSY. The new HQ will be renamed Scotland Yard, as it will be located near the original building of that name, which became synonymous and well known in thriller and crime novels around the world, such as Sherlock Holmes, The Saint, Agatha Christie and James Bond novels.
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BBC News
2 September 2014 Last updated at 12:05
New Scotland Yard sale: £250m price for Met HQ
A £250m price tag has been placed on New Scotland Yard as the Metropolitan Police prepares to move to a smaller headquarters.
The office block near Victoria station has housed the Met since 1967, but is being sold off as part of a cost-cutting effort.
The force’s new HQ will be the Curtis Green building on Victoria Embankment.
Up to 200 police buildings are due to be sold by 2016, with £124.5m already brought in by the big sell off.
‘Massive programme’
The force expects to reduce its annual running costs by £60m once the moves are completed in two years’ time.
Its new headquarters will house 1,000 officers and staff compared to the 2,500 currently working at New Scotland Yard, with the remaining 1,500 relocated at other Met buildings in the capital.
The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime said New Scotland Yard will have a guide price of £250m and be marketed as “Ten Broadway”.
Some of the proceeds will be used to buy new hi-tech equipment such as body-worn cameras, secure tablets and smartphones for officers.
Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Stephen Greenhalgh said: “By selling the old Met HQ and shrinking the estate, we can afford to fund the massive programme we have under way to equip front-line officers with cutting edge technology.”
The Met’s head office, has moved several times before.
It shifted from from Whitehall Place to Great Scotland Yard in 1875 and to the Norman Shaw building in 1890, before establishing its base in the current building in the 1960s.
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30 October 2012 11:48
It seems the rumour that has been circulating regarding the sale of the New Scotland Yard is a rumour no more. By 2015 The New Scotland Yard is no longer the New Scotland Yard but most probably the New New Scotland Yard or The Newest Scotland Yard or even completely renamed into something else.
The revolving sign outside the building is a major tourist attraction. It would probably rival the gates of Buckingham Palace with the amount of photos and pictures taken of it. Every breaking news shows the Scotland Yard sign. It must be saved at all cost. It is iconic as it somehow linked to another British Icon, the most intelligent, and deductive detective of all times, the great Sherlock Holmes, I know he is fiction, we know he is fiction but Sherlock Holmes represents the classic good British logical thinking that we all hope the police force aspires to.
Before the sale of the building it must thought through thoroughly. It is not just selling an anonymous building, it is a symbol of British peace and safety, of British policing, of British Law and Order.
The amount spent buying the building should also be considered. Will the country lose out if the building is sold at today’s market price?
Selling out buildings and lands owned by Metropolitan Police may be good in theory but have the repercussions been thought out? Our population is growing exponentially and therefore we need more policing to keep peace and order. But if we do not have the lands and buildings to use to carry out effective policing then it would be chaos not only to the citizens but also to the country’s coffers. The buildings and lands might have to be bought back in much, much higher prices as what has been the usual case.
Don’t let this decision of selling everything be a knee-jerk reaction. Don’t make it as a false economy. Remember Gordon Brown selling the country’s gold at a bargain price?!!! Don’t let this situation to happen again. Prime lands and building owned by MetPolice are an asset which is only right to be passed down to generations yet to come!
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30 October 2012 Last updated at 10:06
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Scotland Yard could be sold as part of £500m savings plan
New Scotland Yard has been the force’s HQ since 1967
The Metropolitan Police is planning to sell off its headquarters to help save £500m over the next two and half years.
New Scotland Yard in Victoria, central London, would be put up for sale under proposals designed to deliver savings and boost frontline policing.
Police stations across London would also be under threat, with five already approved for sale, as the force seeks to dispose of a third of its estate.
The plans were revealed to the deputy mayor for police and crime on Tuesday.
The Met has been tasked by the mayor’s office with making savings of half-a-billion pounds by 2015.
Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey told the deputy mayor for policing and crime, Stephen Greenhalgh, that if significant savings were to be made then a third of the Met’s property estate needed to be disposed of.
Currently, it has about 700 buildings including police stations, patrol bases and traffic garages.
“We need buildings that are fit for a modern police service,” said Craig Mackey.
“New Scotland Yard costs £11m a year to run and we now need to invest over £50m into it.”
Under the plans the force HQ would move to a nearby, smaller building in Whitehall.
Sharing servicesMr Mackey said a final decision would not be made until November when the proposals would be submitted to the Mayor’s Office for Police and Crime (MOPAC) as part of budget savings.
As part of the savings plan, police stations in Richmond, Willesden Green, Highbury Vale, Walthamstow and south Norwood have been approved for sale.
Guy Smith BBC London’s Home Affairs Correspondent
It seems nothing is safe from being sold off in the name of making huge “savings” – half a billion pounds before 2015.
Iconic buildings, police stations and front counters are all at risk of the chop. It’s all part of a radical strategy to axe a third of the Met’s large property estate, much of which pre-dates the Second World War and is now not fit-for-purpose.
Instead of investing in bricks and mortar, the Met is talking about increasing “public access points” to replace front counters at police stations. This means neighbourhood officers being highly-visible in places like supermarkets, shopping centres or council buildings.
Borough commanders are also in the firing line. We won’t know how many will go until next month when the budget is presented. But the aim is to reduce managers/supervisors and increase the number of constables by 1,000 to a total 25,000.
It all goes towards helping London’s mayor keep his election pledge to maintain overall police officer numbers at around 32,000. Meanwhile, a significant amount of the family silver will go.
But Mr Mackey reassured reporters at an earlier news conference: “We will have at least one station in each borough providing access to the public 24/7.”
There are also plans to close “underused” front counters.
The deputy commissioner said 65 out of 136 front counters across London have one visitor an hour and on average there were 48 crimes reported at front counters across the whole of London between 11pm and 7am.
In their place, the deputy commissioner said he aimed to establish more opportunities for safer neighbourhood teams to be in popular locations such as shopping centres and supermarkets.
“We are working with local authorities to share public access points,” he said.
The Met is also looking at saving money by cutting the number of borough commanders – currently there is one for each of the 32 council areas.
One idea is to share services and senior managers across some boroughs, with perhaps a superintendent instead being the officer responsible for leading policing.
London’s mayor Boris Johnson made an election promise earlier this year to keep police officer numbers to about 32,000.
Mr Mackey proposed that reducing the number of supervisors and senior ranking officers would allow the Met to invest in more police constables on the beat.
“Core policing will still be delivered locally with more officers in neighbourhood policing,” said Mr Mackey. “But no decisions have been made on any of these proposals.”
