Fire and prison services to share new police college

The North’s planned state-of-the-art police-training college will be shared with the fire and prison services in a bid to overcome a potential £40m (€59.3m) funding crisis, it was confirmed today.

Northern Secretary Peter Hain is to put his integrated proposals to British treasury chiefs, who are now expected to rubber-stamp the overall £130m (€192.8m) costs as early as next month.

Construction at the site identified for the academy at Cookstown, Co Tyrone, could begin within a year, with the first trainees moving in by 2010.

Amid rising frustrations over delays at getting to work on the facilities, a key strand of the Patten blueprint for overhauling the North’s police force, Mr Hain told an international conference in Belfast that he had found an innovative way forward.

Opening the Policing The Future event, Mr Hain said the college would cater for the needs of police, fire and prison-service recruits.

“This is an exciting opportunity, which fulfils a key Patten recommendation.

“The new facility will provide excellent training facilities to meet the specialist needs of each of the organisations and provide new opportunities for joint training.

“This an innovative proposal, the first of its kind in the UK, which has only been possible because of the fresh thinking of those involved.

“Of paramount importance will be the ability of the new college to deliver quality training and I believe that this integrated approach is the best way to achieve this.”

His announcement was a major breakthrough in the long-running saga surrounding an academy to replace the dilapidated Garnerville complex in east Belfast.

The Government had been resisting demands to hand over the extra cash needed to construct the facilities on the 210-acre Desertcreat site chosen from a list of 26 contenders.

The college was to have been built by 2008, but the delays mean the completion date has slipped back by up to two years.

At one stage, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde had vowed to build the academy himself in an effort to get work under way.