The scandal of London's disappearing police stations

The police office is now closed to the public” reads a sign on a run-down building in Walthamstow high street. For anyone who wants to speak to the police, it suggests Chingford, roughly four miles away, and adds: “Please call 999 if you have an emergency.” A shopkeeper a few doors down shrugs. “It’s been closed for a long time,” he says. A bigger station nearby shut in 2011, following an arson attack.

They are two of more than a hundred police stations that have been closed in London over the past decade and a half. So forgotten are the capital’s police stations that Westminster councillors last month granted planning permission to demolish a former site in Savile Row, and replace it with a development that will include an academy for apprentice tailors.

In 2008, London had 160 open police station counters. But the Standard can reveal that the number is now 36, meaning