Closure: Barking Police Station is to shut by March 2013

Barking police station is to close next year as part of a Met-wide cost-cutting drive, it has been confirmed.

The town centre police station, which opened in Ripple Road in 1910, is to be sold off together with eight others to save money to be reinvested into “operational policing” in the capital.

Police unveiled a new, £18million police station accommodating around 500 officers almost a mile from the town centre at Fresh Wharf at Muirhead Quay, Barking, last year.

But Barking and Dagenham police chief Andy Ewing pledged to keep the old station open until a new reporting centre was set up in the town centre.

He said: “Barking police station’s public access counter will not be closed until an alternative reporting/enquiry office has been established. I would like to reassure the community that they will not be without a police reporting counter at any stage of the property portfolio review.”

Council leader Liam Smith pledged to work with police to ensure a constant police presence remained in the town centre.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the whole of their property estate was under review to make the best use of it and “identify savings that can be reinvested into operational policing”. The Barking station is likely to close before March 2013.