Julia Lopez MP questions Hornchurch Police Station sale in Parliament.

Hornchurch and Upminster MP, Julia Lopez, has raised in parliament this week her concerns about Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plans to sell Hornchurch Police Station. Mrs Lopez’s House of Commons intervention to Police Minister, Tom Pursglove, follows confirmation that the sale will be pursued in a letter sent to her by Mr Khan’s Deputy.

The local MP had written to the Mayor in July to seek assurances on the future of the critical policing base. Mrs Lopez has consistently campaigned for a continued police presence at Hornchurch Police Station since the Mayor first outlined proposals for its sale in 2017. Given the geographical size of Havering, the local MP made the case that police response times could be affected if the Hornchurch & Upminster part of the borough lost the base. 

Following a strong local campaign championed by Julia and local activists, the Council secured in 2018 the option to purchase the station and lease it back to the Mayor’s Office for Police and Crime (MOPAC) to retain officers on site.

Since then, the plan has been subject to continued delay and review leaving the future of the site uncertain. In the meantime, the number of officers in the East Area Borough Command Unit has continued to grow thanks to the government’s police officer recruitment campaign, leaving local officers questioning whether the sale plan is the right one.

The Mayor’s Deputy, Sophie Linden, admitted in reply to Mrs Lopez that the national uplift in officers means the Metropolitan Police Service ‘now has more officers than at any time in its history’. In 2018, East Area BCU had 1210 officers (Full Time Equivalent), a number that now stands at 1560 – something Ms Linden has called a ‘substantial increase in resources’. 

The letter concluded, however, that the MPS believes its proposed estate plans are sufficient in Havering to meet operational requirements, taking into account the officer uplift, and Ms Linden confirmed that discussions on the sale of Hornchurch Police Station to Havering Council are still ongoing.

Following Ms Linden’s letter, Mrs Lopez pressed the local authority for an update on those discussions but was advised that they had not heard from the Met in recent months on the subject.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday 5 September, Mrs Lopez asked Police Minister, Tom Pursglove, to encourage the Mayor to make sure every part of the capital has bases from which newly recruited officers can operate. In his reply, Mr Pursglove confirmed that the Mayor has 3000 new officers in London over and above what he had previously as a result of the national uplift, while his resources are up by £164 million compared with 2021-22.

Mrs Lopez said, “I will continue to press the Mayor on Hornchurch Police Station because I have seen the fantastic work local officers have done by using it as a base for community policing operations. I know that residents too have concerns about police response times if we have to rely on Romford Police Station. This is not a small geographical area we are talking about. It’s important that officers can start shifts easily, have a place to convene, carry out administrative tasks and plan operations. The Mayor’s assurance that he is talking to Havering Council seems not to be accurate and insofar as the question of sale is still open, I will carry on asking whether the decision to sell is the right one.”