Police in Aberdeen look to the future, following sale of Queen Street building
Queen Street police station in the centre of Aberdeen has been sold as part of Police Scotland’s strategy to rationalise estate and integrate with partners.
Following a decision by the Scottish Police Authority in September 2020 to dispose of the building, over 500 members of staff have been relocated from the building in the last 10 months into shared facilities with both Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils plus into six refurbished police buildings.
Speaking about the sale and scale of the project, North East Divisional Commander, Chief Superintendent Kate Stephen said: “Queen Street station was built 50 years ago for the formation of Grampian Police in 1975. Although it was state of the art at the time, in today’s modern society it was no longer fit for purpose. It had accessibility limitations, very poor energy efficiency, high maintenance costs and in a highly demanding job, it no longer provided the best working environment for our staff.
“The decision to dispose of Queen Street not only allowed us to focus on where we could share facilities with partner organisations but it also gave the opportunity to review our existing estate and identify where departments should be ideally located.
“Prior to moving staff out of Queen Street we did have instances of some departments being split across locations. The project team was able to make a wider review of existing estate and use the opportunity to ensure that staff who should be working together were relocated into the same location. As a result we have created six business area hubs where officers and staff are now located in the best location. This includes Public Protection, Criminal Investigation, Operational Support and Partnerships.
“We extensively publicised last May when our city centre policing team, public counter and partnership functions transferred to Marischal College to integrate with Aberdeen City Council. Nine months on from those moves, through workshops and surveys we know that the organisation is experiencing many significant benefits from moving including greater collaboration from working more closely with partner departments.
“Preparing Queen Street for sale has also been a significant amount of work. A small dedicated in-house team has worked tirelessly to ensure that the environmental impact of relocating staff has been minimised and we have maximised ethical disposal of the contents of the building.
“Furniture and equipment has either been repurposed internally or donated to charity and community groups. All unusable items have been broken down and separated for recycling.
“The anticipated carbon emissions savings from moving out of Queen Street is 793 tonnes per year.
“Our city centre policing team is fully settled into Marischal College and the dedicated service they provide to the city centre community has not changed. The police public counter, situated within the Aberdeen City Council Customer Service Centre is more accessible than it was at Queen Street and the public now has the benefit of being able to enquire about council and police matters at the same location.
“Working in more modern facilities has also provided a more positive working environment for our staff. Our city centre team now enjoy working in a more open plan office, alongside other teams and departments that they often need to interact with in the course of their duties. The project team also ensured that our other sites were refurbished to provide more enhanced working spaces.
“Our officers and public counter continue to serve the community and have remained within the city centre. The bricks and mortar around us may have changed but we remain focussed on serving the public. Being integrated in shared facilities is already allowing us to build further on the strong established links we have with our local authority partners, and to provide an even more effective and integrated service that creates better outcomes for the more vulnerable members of the community. “
Assistant Chief Constable, Local Policing North, John Hawkins added: “Police Scotland is embarking on an extensive estate transformation strategy, with the aim of integrating more fully with partners in shared offices across the country.
“Co-location brings a number of benefits to the way we can work together with local authorities to help communities far more than we have been able to in the past. It reduces our environmental footprint and provides financial savings that we can use to invest more in our people and technology. Our priority is providing the best service we can to help communities and being in shared facilities, providing integrated services will enable us to do this.
“The North East Division Integration Project (NEDIP) here in Aberdeen is the first estates project of this magnitude to be undertaken by Police Scotland and has already demonstrated tangible benefits to our staff, the way we work and in turn to the public we serve. This will be used as the template for similar integration projects in other areas of Scotland as we develop enhanced services to serve the public.”
The police owned parts of the Queen Street building have been sold to Aberdeen City Council today (28 February 2022).
The mortuary and Courts offices remain operational and are the responsibility of Aberdeen City Council and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service respectively.
