02/09/2014

New Scotland Yard Goes On The Market For £250m

New Scotland Yard has been put up for sale for £250m.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today unveiled plans to boost investment in frontline policing.

The 1960s office block in the heart of Victoria, home to the Met Police HQ since 1967, is being sold by the Mayor's Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) as part of a radical overhaul of the Met estate.

It will provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvest money from dilapidated buildings into frontline policing, creating a lean and high-tech force fit for the challenges of policing in the twenty-first century.

Part of the Mayor's commitment to deliver a balanced budget for the Met Police and keep police numbers high, the plan to reduce the Met estate by a third has already raised £125m through the sale of 32 under-used and dilapidated buildings.

When completed in 2016, it will save the Met over £60m on annual running costs and leave behind a smaller, more modern estate, which will include a brand new training facility in Hendon and a world-class forensics lab and control centre in Lambeth.

With a guide price of £250m, New Scotland Yard will be marketed as 'Ten Broadway'. No longer fit for modern operational policing purposes, upgrading the 1.7-acre, 600,000 square foot site would cost an estimated £50m. Instead, the operational HQ of the Met will relocate to the Curtis Green Building on Victoria Embankment, owned by MOPAC and empty since late 2011, in move that will save the Met over £6m a year in running costs – equivalent to 130 bobbies on the beat.

Planning permission to transform this site, near the historic home of the Met, into a modern, slimmed down HQ was granted last month by Westminster Council. Designed by renowned architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Curtis Green will provide a central headquarters hub to meet the policing needs of the capital. The building will be home to up to 1,000 officers and staff as compared to the 2,500 working out of the current HQ and include public access and event spaces, open-plan offices, an iconic blue line beacon and the trademark revolving sign.

(CD/JP)

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