Sale of Hampshire constabulary’s Alpha Park in Eastleigh, which has been empty for five years, is unlikely to recoup costs
Hampshire police bought Alpha Park for £9.6m at the height of the property boom, and has since spent more on its upkeep.
A police force which spent more than £11m on a headquarters it has never used has announced it will sell the site, which has been empty for five years.
Hampshire constabulary will put Alpha Park up for sale because it cannot afford to develop it and is unlikely to recoup the money it paid. The building in Eastleigh was bought in 2008 at the height of the property boom for £9.6m and the force has since spent £1.836m on upkeep, security, business rates and other costs.
The then chief constable, Alex Marshal, who is now head of the College of Policing, was warned in 2010 that the force could not afford the bill to refurbish the site, which could have topped £40m.
The issue was called “expensive and embarrassing” by the local police federation last year,...
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An incidental introduction to this month’s newsletter – this is my 300th post on this blog and not long ago, we surpassed the milestone of 300,000 hits. Averaging over 1,000 hits per blog is not bad going for the fact that I’m banging on about the potentially very dry subject of mental health and criminal … Continue reading »
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Riding over here today. Doing a `Battle of Britain` guided tour.
Anyone in the
vicinity who knows me is welcome to come up to me with a copy of `The Sporting Life` and state, "You are
Chalkey White and I claim my mug of tea and a bath bun".
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 On the train to work this morning, a friend told me about a fascinating phenomenon known as the ’Ant Death Circle’ (also called the ‘Ant Death Spiral’ or ‘Ant Mill’).
What happens is that ants sometimes lose the pheromone track laid down for them to follow, and veer off course. Each ant then follows the ant in front and the group forms a continuously rotating circle. The ants then blindly follow this circular trail until they die of exhaustion.
Pretty depressing stuff huh? Poor ants.
The powerful and emblematic image of the ant death circle made me immediately think of parallels in conventional performance management - the self-perpetuating downward spiral of targets, binary comparisons, internalised peer vs peer competition, and so on. How often do we unquestioningly follow the ‘ant’ in front and do what we’ve always done, for that reason alone? Because it’s the policy. Because it’s how we do things round here. Because the boss says so.
Maybe you’re an ‘ant’ trudging along within the circle, finding it difficult to break away from the norm but...
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What an insult to all of us! MPs’ demand for a huge pay rise shows the gap between rulers and ruled has never been so wide
By DOMINIC SANDBROOK
‘Unacceptable’: Labour’s John Mann said on the proposed pay rise for MPs: ‘They should throw this proposal in the bin,’ accurately predicting it would ‘just create more bad publicity for MPs’
For most people, times are tough. Summer is fast approaching yet, with food prices rising and energy costs rocketing, many families feel too squeezed to contemplate a holiday.
One small group of lucky winners, however, is laughing all the way to the bank. For according to reports yesterday, Britain’s 650 MPs can soon look forward to a £10,000 pay rise, taking their basic pay to a whopping £75,000 a year.
In return for their pay rise, MPs are expected to accept a small cut in their gold-plated pensions, which are far more generous than most public-sector workers’ arrangements.
To be fair, not all MPs are delighted with the news.
‘They should throw this proposal in...
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Now police place journalists in same bracket as criminals: Officers will be forced to name any friends who work in the media… or face the sack
- Every officer must formally report any friendship with journalist
- Means those in media would be placed in the same bracket
 as criminals
Police officers must declare if they are friends with journalists under draconian new guidelines published yesterday.
As a result, every officer in England and Wales must formally report any friendship outside his workplace with a journalist.
And if they fail to do so and are judged to have concealed the relationship, they could now face dismissal for gross misconduct.
This effectively means that people working in media organisations would be placed in the same bracket as criminals.
The decision will alarm Government ministers and censorship campaigners, who fear police forces are shutting their doors to scrutiny.
Frontline police representatives have already warned that ambitious police...
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We had a run-of-the-mill no-railway-ticket case in the other day, and as usually happens the defendant sent in a postal plea of guilty. Even with the plea discount, the fine surcharge and costs usually amount to a hefty sum compared with the few pounds that a ticket costs.
This was an unusual one, though, as the previous convictions list showed that the chap was on a suspended sentence of 9 months from the Crown Court last Autumn, so this latest offence amounted to a breach. There was much leafing through law books and scratching of heads before the clerk announced that we would have to write to the fare dodger telling him that he would have to attend the Crown court and try to convince the judge not to implement all or part of the 'bender' as the pro's call it. That will have been a nasty surprise for our man.
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 One would have thought that a document issued today on behalf of The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, Nick Hurd MP and Jeremy Wright MP with the word “reforms” in its title would at least have had the spelling of the word “REFORMS” correct. One would have been mistaken.
It seems to this blogger that commentary on the document is unnecessary. Read it for yourself and see if you agree.
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 Magistrates are unpaid volunteers. Most, in my experience, value their independence. Most would not be willing to accept payment in lieu of that independence. Many (most?) echo my own view that Her Majesty`s Courts and Tribunal Service in its dealings with magistrates considers us as unpaid employees. In other words that we are as pawns on the justice chessboard to be manoeuvred at the whim of those civil servants; all 26 of them, known as Justices` Clerks. Indeed I have heard tell of such an official telling an annual bench meeting of J.P.s what it can and cannot debate. Be that as it may it seems that that attitude is spreading to other organisations within our justice system.
A colleague who spies for me in another part of the country has been invited with his bench colleagues to one or all of a series of meetings sponsored by one of the newly established Pay By Results organisations now running probation services. Nothing odd about that and even refreshments are being offered as an inducement. The fly in this...
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The LPM is now signed off….as per my previous post all reasonable and sensible alternatives seem to have been ignored.
The 24th June is a real watershed as far as I am concerned.
Management have, as ever, taken the nod from the Home Office.
The troops are on the ropes, the whining cur that is now the FED has scuttled back to its well-appointed kennel in Leatherhead.
Do with them as you will…
And so they have …..
Efficiency… efficiency… efficiency....
The MET has only one asset that can make the whole nonsense work and that is its workforce.
A workforce that has stepped up time and again despite everything….
Management are seriously misreading local sentiment.
To quote the Eagles
‘Take it easy, take it easy
Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don’t even try and understand
Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy’
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We sat on a trial today that had been tagged (as is so common these days) as Domestic Violence. DV trials (when they finally go ahead, as so many do not) often boil down to "He said...She Said...." in which we have to choose between two conflicting accounts of the same incident.
I cannot go into too much detail, but as the couple, whose relationship was as good as dead, gave their accounts of the incident that had led to charges, I had an uncomfortable feeling of being an intruder on private grief. Both of the parties were articulate and educated, but as the case unfolded we heard old resentments and suspicions welling up, that really had no place in a public forum like a courtroom.
In the final analysis we could not be sure beyond reasonable doubt that the Crown had proved its case, so we told the defendant that our verdict was Not Guilty. Tears of relief followed, but the couple, who have two young children, will still face the task of re-establishing a family that will offer stability and love to the children.
I wish them luck, but my hopes are not high.
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Organisers call on the force to deal with the dark side of a sci-fi convention!
Police had to be called in to separate rival Star Wars and Dr Who fans at a sci-fi convention in Norwich.
Trouble flared at the fourth Norwich Sci-Fi and Film Convention at the University of East Anglia, organised by the Norwich Star Wars Club.
Police were called after members of the rival Norwich Sci-Fi club arrived to get autographs from two Doctor Who actors at the event.
More than a dozen sci-fi fans from both groups, including several in fancy dress, were involved in a bitter exchange outside the venue at the University of East Anglia.
Jim Poole, Treasurer of Norwich Sci Fi Club, was asked to leave as he approached Doctor Who actor Graham Cole for an autograph.
That provoked a tense stand-off between Mr Poole and the event organiser Richard Walker (63) who then took their dispute outside.
Mr Walker said the visiting club had been trying to undermine and embarrass the convention by posting comments on social media sites such as Facebook.
But Mr...
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Sherwood Lodge, prior to demolition to make way for the new Police Headquarters
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 The Panorama programme uses never before broadcast footage of the Hillsborough disaster (Video here)
Crucial evidence from the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster, which was undermined at the original inquest, was true, BBC Panorama has found.
An off-duty police officer has always maintained he tried to treat a dying boy after the time at which the coroner said no-one could have survived.
His account cast doubt on medical evidence that supporters could not have survived beyond 15:15 on that day.
Panorama’s analysis of unbroadcast TV footage shows his account was true.
Ninety-six football fans died after they were crushed to death on 15 April 1989 during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium.
The inquest at the time resulted in verdicts of accidental death but, in December last year, the High Court quashed those verdicts and ordered fresh inquests to take place early next year.
The TV footage seen by Panorama calls into question...
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 There are some aspects of a society that seem for many to define that society. Swiss trains always run on time; indeed they run like clockwork. Denmark and the Danes could be regarded as tolerant, easygoing, polymorphously perverse, and crazy about bicycles. German industry is so efficient; German cars continue to be in demand as their price rises. French have been described as cheese eating surrender monkeys which is as inaccurate as describing the Irish as drunken navvies although it perhaps could be argued that there are historical precedents for these derogatory opinions. Take almost any country in the world and there will be a national stereotype to be admired and others to be disparaged. A stereotypical criticism of England could be that its streets are always full of litter. And who`s to argue the inaccuracy of that observation? I have posted here and here on litter.
Generally The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 which came into force on 7th June 2005 is the vehicle empowering local...
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