Mr. Alan Todd:

We have something less than half of the police estate we had prior to the Patten commission. That was because the historical model where the distance between police stations was required to be not more than 24 hours' march was unsustainable for a police service whose strength had declined from between 13,000 and 14,000 to fewer than half that number. Another issue is capital costs and whether it is worth spending capital on maintaining buildings that are not in use. If we put officers into buildings, they are not on the street, which takes us back to the issue of visibility. People like the thought of having a local police station but in a fixed resource pool the choice is whether to have police officers sitting in the station or out on the streets? Having them out on the streets is effective in terms of preventing crime, detecting crime and providing reassurance to people. That is a balance that has to be struck as well.