New North Kent Police Station

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Super New Police Station in Kent

On the 6th May a new environmentally-friendly police station was completed in Northfleet, Kent and over the last few weeks police and civilian staff have been moving in and making it operational. The 11,500m² four-storey building houses offices for police and civilian staff, the division’s store for evidential and lost & found property and a custody suite of 40 cells. The £30m PFI project has been provided by Justice Support Services (North Kent) Ltd, a consortium led by Reliance Secure Task Management Ltd and includes the Bank of Scotland (Corporate) and Kier Project Investment. Building work on the contract was undertaken by Kier Regional (South East) Ltd.

Kent’s position as the gateway to Europe makes the county a unique place to police and Kent Police authority realised that to meet their own mission statement, “To work with partners to create a safe environment for everyone in Kent, where the public feel protected by a visible and accessible police service.” they were going to need new environments for their staff and detainees, and so instigated developments at Medway and Northfleet.

The new state-of-the-art police operational centre at Northfleet is an environmentally sensitive building, making the most of modern architectural innovations, including a large central atrium or “street” that runs the length of the building providing communal areas, break-out areas and a restaurant.

QUOTE FROM CH SUPT GARY BEAUTRIDGE RE THE NEW NORTH KENT POLICE STATION

"This new police station offers massive potential for us to further build on the astonishing successes we have had in North Kent over the last 2 years detecting and reducing crime.
Policing is a profession and we need to offer a professional environment for our officers and staff to work in so they can provide the best possible service to the public.
The new North Kent Police Station is without doubt the finest police facility I have seen in my 29 years service and we are all very enthusiastic about the opportunities it will bring us in policing North Kent."

The building is provided with all the heating and cooling it requires from a geothermal system laid in the grounds of the building, this supplies water at a constant temperature to heat pumps, which in turn supply heated and chilled water for the air conditioning system. There are pipes buried in the structural piles and a total of 26,000m of geothermal pipe laid in an additional geothermal field located below the car park. The estimated saving on the energy bill is approx. £18,000 per year, with an expected pay back within seven years. Even the toilets will be flushed using collected rain water.

Mark Gilmartin, Chief Executive of the Kent Police Authority said: “The Authority is delighted to see completion of the new police station on time and to budget. When we decided to invest this significant amount of money into a new building we really wanted to make sure we had a design that would not only provide a comfortable environment for members of the public but would also provide our officers and staff with the tools to do the job. The old police stations were no longer fit for purpose and now we have an environmentally friendly police station with fantastic equipment that will take our North Kent policing forward in the 21st century.”

Reliance will continue to maintain the premises for the next 30 years, providing services that include the public front desk, catering, cleaning, waste management, conference suite management and police vehicle management. Reliance is a leading supplier to police services with PFI contracts for Sussex, Cleveland and Gloucestershire police services.

Simon Marshall, Reliance Secure Task Management’s Operations Director said,”Our objective is to facilitate Kent Police in their drive to consistently improve their day to day operations."

The complete list of Services provided by Reliance within this contract is;
• Design & Construction of a Divisional HQ for the Northern Division of Kent Police Contract Management
    Helpdesk
    Health & Safety for the building –ISO 9001/2000 & BSEN14001 accreditation for all services
• Estate management
    Horticulture
    Hard & Soft Facilities Management
• Public counter / Front Desk personnel at both HQ and Gravesend & Dartford Police Stations
• Catering
    General canteen & hospitality
    Emergency feeding
• Cleaning
• Waste Management
• Logistics
    Fleet Management
    Transportation of Police staff
• Division’s Property Store
    Evidential property
    Lost & Found
    Tape, CD/DVD and CCTV recordings
• Conference facility management
• “Churn” – furniture moves and restructuring of office space
• Business Continuity
• The transitional move into the new offices
• All associated small works
• CCTV provision and Security Access systems by Reliance Hightech a sister company to Reliance Secure Task Management Ltd.

CCTV and Security Access Systems will be supplied and installed by Reliance HighTech, also a division of Reliance Group PLC.