New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, will be put up for sale today at a guide price of £250 million, ending half a century of police tenancy in the iconic London office block.
The sale forms part of the Greater London Authority’s strategy to cut spending as demanded by the Home Office and is forecast to save £6 million a year in running costs, equivalent to paying for 130 police officers. The money will help to pay for the move to a new, smaller headquarters on the river Thames as well as funding a technology upgrade enabling more officers to work away from the office using tablets and smartphones.
Marketed as Ten Broadway, the New Scotland Yard site in Victoria is 1.7 acres and has 600,000 sq ft of office space, with the upper floors offering views across St James’s Park, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. While the current headquarters has capacity for 2,500 officers and staff, the replacement at Curtis Green, Embankment, will only hold 1,000.
The new, smaller centre, which used to be the headquarters of Territorial Policing but has lain unused since 2011, is being extensively redesigned and renovated. But the Met will take with it the famous grey-and-silver revolving sign, which has been the backdrop to news broadcasts and photo opportunities for decades.
Although London’s police have occupied the Victoria site since 1967, they only took full ownership of the building in 2008 when the Metropolitan Police Authority bought the freehold from Land Securities for £123.5 million.
Like all other UK police forces, the Met has had to make 20 per cent cuts to its budget since the coalition came to power in 2010 and it hopes that efficiencies across its properties will eventually save £60 million a year. It has already raised £125 million through the sale of 32 other premises in the capital.
The savings will be spent on more frontline officers, better mobile technology and a new forensics laboratory.
Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, said that by selling the historic headquarters he was putting “bobbies before buildings”. He added: “By turning dilapidated and underused buildings into high-tech kit, we are giving the Met the tools they need to keep driving down crime in the capital, making them more connected to Londoners than ever before.”
City Hall hopes the sale – which is being managed by Jones Lang LaSalle – will be completed before Christmas and raise more than £300 million. When the sell-off was first mooted two years ago, it prompted several expressions of interest from overseas investors.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014
