Demolition begins at North Walsham police station

North Walsham Police station which is being redeveloped. Picture: MARK BULLIMORE (Image: Archant Norfolk 2016)

Demolition has begun this week at North Walsham Police Station.

The work will see the utilitarian 1970s building flattened and a new station created behind the facade of the red-brick Edwardian courthouse next door.

A portable unit has been placed in the forecourt of the Yarmouth Road building which the public can use as a temporary police station.

A police spokesman said the redevelopment work would take about one year.

Police staff will work at the rear of the modern building until they are able to move into the completed phase one of the project.

Chiefs say the scheme will save money and create better working conditions for staff.

The building will continue to be a strategic command station and day-to-day policing will not be affected while works are under way.

The front of the new police station will be landscaped, to include a rose garden and seating, according to scheme architects, Norwich-based Chaplin Farrant.

'The new office block is designed to be in keeping with the existing building but does not imitate it in order to create an obvious definition between existing and new,' according to Chaplin Farrant.

'It is of a simple modern design rather than a period design which ensures that the new additions have minimal impact on the heritage asset (the old courthouse).'

The 1903 courthouse, which is locally listed and in North Walsham's conservation area, was declared 'surplus to requirements' in 2014-2015.

It had been leased by Norfolk County Council from the Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk.

The council's children's services department had been using it as a 'resource base', largely for storage.

The move follows the replacement of other north Norfolk police stations including Cromer in 2009, and the rehousing of the Sheringham Safer Neighbourhood Team into Sheringham Fire Station in 2012.