Police public counter in Aberdeen now open in Marischal College
Police Scotland’s new public service counter within Marischal College in Aberdeen has opened to the public today (31 May 2021).
The Aberdeen city centre public counter, which was located at Queen Street police station for over 45 years, has now permanently transferred to Marischal College, as part of plans to sell the station and integrate police staff with partner organisations as well as into existing police buildings.
Police Scotland staff will now provide public counter services from within Aberdeen City Council’s Customer Service Centre at Marischal College on Broad Street.
Speaking about the move, Chief Superintendent George Macdonald said: “Today marks an important milestone and the start of an exciting new chapter for policing in Aberdeen.
“Although we will still have police staff and officers working in Queen Street for the next few months, the move of the public office marks the start of a new model for staff and officers in the city.
“Once all of the moves have taken place later this year, we will have greater synergy across our departments through the creation of specialist hubs such as for public protection, criminal justice and CID, cybercrime plus specialist support teams.
“There will be greater integration and partnership working for our staff who regularly liaise with council departments such as social work, antisocial behaviour and licensing, enabling a collaborative approach.
“The facilities within Marischal College and customer experience for the public who attend is excellent and the working environment for our staff and officers who will based there is a marked improvement.
“Our city centre officers recently moved into secure offices within Marischal College and the level of service that the public experienced from Queen Street will be no different at Marischal College.
“There has been no reduction in the number of police officers who serve the city centre or any change to our patrols and coverage of the area.
“The new police public counter will retain its opening hours of 7 days a week.
Assistant Chief Constable, Local Policing North, John Hawkins added: “Today is a significant day for policing in the North East and Police Scotland’s wider national estates strategy.
“Integrating with partners, will enhance service delivery to the public through increased collaborative working. Making use of available office space in local authority buildings also provides financial efficiencies in terms of public spending and will help to reduce our overall environmental footprint, which is a key objective of our estates strategy.
“The North East Division Integration Project (NEDIP) is the first estates project of this magnitude to be undertaken by Police Scotland and will be used as the template for similar integration projects in other areas of Scotland as we develop enhanced services to serve the public.
“Working together with our partners will ensure we provide more effective public services with better outcomes for the local community.”
Aberdeen City Council Leader, Councillor Jenny Laing said: “We are delighted Police Scotland’s city centre police station will be located in Marischal College from today as it will provide us with increased opportunities to work together.
“We hope police staff will enjoy their new workplace environment and residents will find it helpful to have the Police Scotland public counter and our customer services centre located in the same place.”
