Police station work will begin in months

Work on Bilston's new police station is expected to start within months.

Senior officers have previously said they hoped the £3.5 million project would get under way by 2010 but have now narrowed it down to this summer.

They say the existing Victorian building in Mount Pleasant is not fit for purpose and want a new one built. Plans were approved last September for the building in nearby Oxford Street, which will serve as a base for the police and community support officers who patrol the streets.

Town centre officers in Bilston cover the area bordered by Wolverhampton Street, the Black Country Route, Beckett Street, Mount Pleasant and Wellington Road.

Other officers are allocated to the east of the town, including the Loxdale, Carder Crescent, Old Bradley, Lower Bradley and Rocket Pool areas.

Today, Caroline Schubert, of the West Midlands Police Authority, said legal work in connection with the new station was still under way.

"We hope work will start during the summer," she added.

Officers say it will be in a "prime town centre location" and allow them to "continue to deliver a professional police service".

Former Wolverhampton police chief John Mellor is now calling for the force to ensure that the new building becomes a headquarters for the town rather than a sub-station.

The current Bilston police station was built in about 1840 and used to have its own magistrates court.

The building was one of only a few stations in the country to have a moat running around it, along with West Bromwich and Wednesbury.

In 1919, it was the scene of a notorious riot after an argument broke out between officers and drinkers.

Police were forced back into their station and barricaded inside as a mob grew in size.

Eyewitnesses described how every window in the building had been shattered by the end of the trouble but the rioters never made it inside.