January 24th – There is a madness afoot in the country, and possibly the broader western world in the last 10 years or so, and I can see no solution in sight.
Governments come to power on the promise of austerity and cutting spending, yet close used and needed public facilities that took decades to be obtained – in a flash. And so we lost the police station in Walsall on Green Lane, built in the Brutalist period of the 60s, which was closed in response to spending cuts in 2016. Police now have to take suspects to Oldbury when arrested, which is impacting officer availability and causing great inefficiency.
The building itself – an unremarkable modernist structure – was sold to developers and is currently being demolished.
We will need a police station again. The situation as it is is not working.
And it will cost us far more than closing this one saved to sort the mess out.
And when some politician grasps the nettle and does it, they will be derided for financial profligacy.
But the real crime is cutting things communities need, in the interests of short term political gain.
It takes years to build communities, and days to destroy them with cuts. The recklessness seems in the axe-hand to me.
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