Glebe feeling mixed over loss of police station

Glebe residents have had mixed responses to the possibility of losing their local police station.

The Talfourd Street station will be shut down and replaced with a shopfront if NSW Police are given the go ahead to build a $12 million police centre in Leichhardt.

The centre will operate as the main premise for Leichhardt LAC and will involve relocating police officers from Glebe to the new Inner West premise.

For some Glebe residents, informal reassurances from the Police Commander of Leichhardt LAC have been enough to quell fears of a diminished police presence.

“The commander has spoken to one of our people and given reassurance that police presence will remain,” said Vice President of Glebe Society, Bruce Davis. “If the commander says he can do that then we’re willing to give him the chance.”

But others are not so sure.

City of Sydney Councillor Meredith Burgmann, who is a Glebe resident herself, has opposed the change.

Councillor Burgmann said the transfer of Glebe police to Leichhardt did not reflect the community policing needed in a suburb with many “discarded and marginalised” individuals.

“There are nine hundred public housing units in the Glebe area and they have particular problems,” she said. “And to move the police out of the area so that they’ll only come to Glebe ‘on mission’ so to speak rather than working in the area. . . it’s a bit wrong-headed.”

Secretary of the Glebe Chamber of Commerce, Gay Kalnins, is concerned the move will mean an increase in crime.

“Glebe’s a fairly major suburb and we need a police station. . . the area needs policing and it’s not going to be policed if the police are over in Leichhardt.”

But Inspector David Williams from Leichhardt LAC has hit back at claims of diminished police presence.

“Regardless of where we are, we will police the area of Leichhardt Local Area Command,” he said. “Where our police station is housed does not dictate where our crime occurs and does not dictate where we task our police to be.”

According to the latest statistics released from the Bureau of Crime, Glebe reported the highest number of break and enter offences, assaults and thefts than any other suburb in the Leichhardt LAC.

Of the suburbs patrolled by Leichhardt police, Glebe accounted for a third of assaults, 40 per cent of robberies and incidents of steal from a person and almost a quarter of instances of malicious damage to property.

Glebe also had the highest number of break and enters between June 2010 and July 2011, accounting for almost a third of such offences reported to Leichhardt police.

Former Glebe resident Julia Suttle, who was robbed late last year while sleeping in her Hereford Street home, was shocked to hear Glebe police station could be shutting down.

“In the same fortnight as I was robbed, there were three other robberies on my street,” she said.  “None of whom were caught so not having a police station in Glebe seems a little ridiculous to me.”

Ms Suttle said people in the area were desperate for money.

“For someone to climb into my bedroom while I’m sleeping and take my things that are a metre away from me, that takes immense desperation.”

Director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology, Murray Lee, said: “Glebe has a particular demographic and crime profile that’s different to other inner city areas.

“It has quite stark divisions of quite wealthy and very poor populations in the area, significant levels of public housing . . . so it’s a diverse suburb.”

Dr Lee said preventing local crime came down to “the deployment of resources . . . not a particular station being open in the locality.”