West Midlands Crime Commissioner says Tipton Police Station 'still at risk of closure' in 2025

Labour's Simon Foster has hit back at Conservative MP Shaun Bailey who claimed to have "saved" the station after winning the support of the Government for an all-new 999 response unit which would include a new home for 24 officers to be stationed at the Upper Church Lane headquarters.

Tipton Police Station was originally listed for closure as part of a £5 million cost-cutting plan and was earmarked to shut its doors in 2021 alongside stations such as Brierley Hill, Oldbury and Wednesfield, along with others in Birmingham including Balsall Heath, Sutton Coldfield, Kingstanding and Harborne.

Mr Foster has now responded to the West Bromwich West MP and said that the station remains in threat of closure in autumn 2025 as a result of "poor decision making" on the part of "Shaun Bailey's own government".

He told the Express & Star: "Following a decade of reckless cuts, imposed by the Government, on police forces up and down the country, well over 600 police stations have been forced to close. These reckless cuts were all supported by, voted for and implemented by Shaun Bailey MP’s own Government.

"In February 2018, over five years ago, a decision was made by the then chief constable, based on his impartial and independent assessment, that Tipton Police Station was ‘surplus estate’, within the West Midlands Police Estates Programme. We had lost 2,221 police officers and this was part of a strategy to prevent the loss of even more police officers.

"As a consequence of ill-advised, misconceived and poor decision making on the part of MP Shaun Bailey's own Government, Tipton Police Station remains at risk of closure in autumn 2025. Until then, the police station remains open and I will keep the police estate under constant review.

"West Midlands Police faces cuts of £28 million this year and a further £28 million of cuts next year, cuts that flow from the Government’s failure to deliver fair funding for the West Midlands.

"If the MP genuinely wants to save Tipton Police Station, I would urge him to join my campaign to reform his own Government’s deeply flawed police funding formula, that costs West Midlands Police £40 million a year, so as to ensure fair funding for West Midlands Police."

Tipton is reported to be one of the most crime-hit neighbours in the Black Country, with latest police figures showing that close to 500 crimes were reported in the area in the month of May alone, with half of those incidents violence and sexual offences.