Watch: Plans to open new police stations in Portsmouth, Gosport and Fareham have been unveiled - including "very large" new Cosham station

The announcement by police and crime commissioner Donna Jones will also see a “very large” new station in Cosham - the first station built in years that will be “one of the biggest” for the force and the first under her tenure.

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Ms Jones has today announced her plan to reopen 10 more police stations to the public. The stations will be in Portsmouth Central, Cosham, Gosport, Park Gate, Petersfield, Totton, Ryde, Yateley, Eastleigh and Cowes.

The scheme is part of the commissioner’s commitment to drive up police visibility and make officers accessible to the public once more. Today, the locations and timeline of the project have been confirmed. The plans mean there will be a police station open to the public in every district across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

The announcement means Portsmouth Central station in Winston Churchill Avenue will once again be open to the public next spring while a new site being built in Cosham will offer a strong police presence in the north of the city when opened in early 2025.

The closed Gosport station will throw open its door to the public once again after being shut for several years. The opening date has yet to be confirmed. The Park Gate station in Fareham will also be reopening in the spring. Petersfield will see a new base in the summer of 2024.

Ms Jones said there will be a front counter at the Portsmouth Central station. She said: “We’re trying to make it easier for the public to go into a police station and report incidents and crimes and any intelligence they have. The public have said they want us to increase the visibility of the police because it drives up feelings of community safety and is a deterrent to crime.

“The Portsmouth response patrol teams are based inside the naval base so I’m going to be moving teams out of the base at some point in the future and moving them to the brand new police station in Cosham and also to Portsmouth Central so we will have a response patrol covering the north and the south of the city and not all coming from the naval base.”

Reopening the central station will also help people on bail who do not own vehicles and currently struggle to get to the investigation centre and Hilsea.

In Cosham, the force currently rents a building at Medina House which many people are unaware of but the new location close to Queen Alexandra Hospital will offer an accessible location for the public and an important strategic base for the police, Ms Jones said.

The new station will hopefully offer a boost to police in tackling crime. “I want more people to report incidents and crime and I want people to feel more connected with their police force,” the commissioner said.

“The brand new police and fire station is one of the biggest stations we have built in years. It will have a front counter and people will be able to come in and report incidents. We will have CID working there so detectives covering crimes in the Portsmouth north area.

“There will also be response patrol and neighbourhood policing teams, so there will be a lot of people working from the new site. It will bring a police station back to Cosham because there isn’t one at the moment, just a neighbourhood space. This will be very large, a blue light harbour shared with the fire brigade who we work closely with and will bring a lot of police services back to the north of the city.

"It’s exciting as this is the first time I’ve had a new police station being built under my tenure and is all part of my commitment to recruiting more officers, to driving up visibility.”

Ms Jones said Gosport station is “mothballed” but she took the decision to keep the building and will have a range of police services from detectives to response patrol and neighbourhood teams with a new front counter there when it reopens. The commissioner wants officers “getting to know who’s committing the most crimes in Gosport”.

She said: “You only get that by putting detectives into the locality so they really get to know their local patch.”

Currently the force’s only presence in Gosport is a small space rented in Gosport Borough Council so this will provide a boost to the force and public in the area. It means officers will no longer have to drive down to the peninsula - with the new presence there “improving response times and making the community of Gosport safer”.

This is the latest announcement the commissioner has made to bring police closer to communities, improve visibility and support the chief constable’s new model of delivering excellent local policing.

The commissioner earmarked £2m in the 2023-24 budget to fund the scheme spanning the next 18 months with plans already underway to deliver before the end of 2023.

Four of the new stations have previously been talked about by the commissioner but this is the first time the full extent of the plans have been revealed.

The force was among those to close stations during public sector cuts following the 2009 financial crisis. Across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight a large number shut their doors to the public in 2014, although some of the stations remained in use as operational bases.

The force currently has 13 police stations that are open to the public. These are a mixture of full time opening hours and part time opening. The opening times of the new police stations will be determined based on local demand. The force is poised to recruit Station Enquiry Officers to manage enquiries from the public. This is so that police officers can focus on front line duties.

This is the latest announcement made by the commissioner to increase police visibility, alongside the successful recruitment of 650 extra police officers and her commitment to bring back named “Local Bobbies” to every community.