Dorset Police 2024

Our vision is to have an estate that supports employees, enhances work with key partner agencies and helps to deliver crucial services to our communities. We are commencing work on an Asset Management Plan that will feed directly into a new Estates Strategy, supporting our principles of keeping people safe by ensuring that our buildings best enable officers, staff and volunteers to do their jobs.

People like to engage with the police in a variety of ways; online, over the phone and face-to-face, so it is vital that we provide a variety of accessible options to our communities. Through a new ways of working trial last year, we reopened front counters at Lyme Regis, Blandford and Swanage to the public. This provides local communities with options, improves the convenience of contacting the police and strengthens the service offered.

No matter how quickly technology evolves, the development of our buildings is a much slower process. Changes to estate are complex, require considerable capital investment and can be many years in the making. This explains why Dorset Police’s estate is a mixture of newer open plan buildings, and older, more traditional bespoke buildings.

The Dorset Police Estate currently comprises of 60 buildings at 40 sites, incorporating a mix of freehold, leasehold and PFI. A percentage of the leased estate is embedded within partner agency accommodation on various agreements. For example, there are some locations where Dorset Police are co-located with Dorset and Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service.

The Estates Futures Programme and other capital projects aim to meet the needs and demands of an increasingly agile workforce. They work to a strategy that supports flexible working, incorporating employee wellbeing and sustainability. Recent projects include refurbishment of the CID offices in Bournemouth, installation of mini markets at Poole, Ferndown and Bournemouth, and re-roofing and installing solar panels across various locations.

We are deploying specific initiatives, which take tangible steps to improve the carbon footprint of the estate. We are working to improve sustainability and remain focused on achieving our goal of net zero in 2040. The Dorset Police Sustainability Strategy has recently been released. An example of how we’re working towards our goals is through our new Headquarters at Winfrith, which will be open for general occupation from April 2024. The building will promote new ways of working, allowing employees to be flexible and agile in their working day. By incorporating sustainability measures, this building aims to reduce energy and water consumption and incorporates designs to prevent pollution. Across the site we are promoting green travel through additional electrical charging ports, increased cycle storage and car sharing spaces. The landscaped area that will replace the demolished building will promote wellbeing, providing an area for outdoor meetings and breakout space.

We continue to work collaboratively to ensure estate assets integrate or compliment those of our public sector partners, so that we collectively make best use of public money and ensure that we work together to keep everyone safe.