Without community consultation or a public announcement, the decision has been made to permanently close the Lochinvar police station.
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This is a station that, six years ago, the community fought hard to keep open.
Yet these same people have been completely left out of the decision-making process.
The transparency around the closure decision and imminent sell-off of the site has been murky at best.
We still have no more than one sentence as to why it needed to remain closed and absolutely no timeframe around the sale of the property or who will reap the benefit of the sale.
Shouldn’t the community get to spend the profits made from the sale of its police station?
Perhaps the money should fund more police officers for the region, since they will now have to travel further to get to the scene of any incidents.
Resident Pru Scott has spoken publicly several times about how a police presence in the area helped to give the community peace of mind.
A high-visibility police presence can also help to reduce the incidence of crime. With officers now coming from Maitland, there are a lot of questions around how regular the police presence will now be in Lochinvar and surrounding suburbs.
It is also worth looking at future population growth, because there is no point selling off an asset that will be needed again in two to five years.
In February, it was reported that the population of Lochinvar was expected to increase from 500 up to 20,000 people in the next decade.
The community deserves answers and, until we have them, no final judgment about the closure of the police station should be made.