Saturday, 15 December, 2007
A POLICE station has closed every week since Labour came to power in 1997, Government figures reveal.
A total of 550 shut their doors for good over the decade. Of the surviving stations, only one in eight is open round the clock.
They have been replaced by police kiosks, mobile vans and offices in community centres.
The figures emerged two weeks after schoolboy Jack Large was stabbed to death outside an unmanned police station in Essex.
David Ruffley, Tory police spokesman, said station closures undermined confidence in the police.