Police station closures approved

PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde wants to dispose of the facilities to generate £7.3m in resources and money saved on their upkeep.

Unionist members opposed 20 of the closures, but were outvoted on each occasion by nationalist and independent members.

Chairman Barry Gilligan had to use his casting vote on several occasions.

The discussions were heated with the proposals already having angered unionist board members, who have questioned the timing of the move given the upsurge in dissident republican violence.

'Angry'

"We are very angry and we are angry for a just cause," said the DUP's Ian Paisley jnr.

"Ordinary men and women across Ulster tonight expect to see police on the ground, a decision to close stations looks in many instances, especially in rural Ulster, like a withdrawal."

Ulster Unionist Basil McCrea stood beside the DUP delegation to voice his concerns.

"We were not against disposal of police stations," he said, noting that unionists had backed a number of the sales.

"What we were against was disposal of police stations without alternatives being put in place. There are no concrete proposals."

Nationalist and republicans backed the closures, arguing that selling off un-used stations will not impact on front line policing.

"At the end of the day in my opinion and the opinion of our party we believe that the board took the proper decision," Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey said.

"The vast majority of them are closed, a number of them have very limited opening hours and none of them are serving any useful purpose in respect of delivery of a proper police service."

The SDLP's Dolores Kelly accused the DUP and UUP of playing politics with the issue.

"Given that some of these stations have been closed since 2002 and 2005 I think they (the unionists) have some questions to answer in how they see them delivering policing," she said.

Of the 26 stations that are to be sold, only one - Bessbrook in Co Armagh - is fully operational.

Five others are open on a limited or variable basis and the other 20 have been closed for a number of years.

"I think the public understands that the money that we have needs to be invested into delivering an effective service", Assistant Chief Constable David Jones told UTV before the meeting.

"You've been around the estate; you've seen what the buildings look like. They are redundant assets as far as we're concerned."

More proposed sales are likely to follow in the future as the police continues a review of its estate.