Modern day police 'boxes' set to return to London streets?

105/02
23 October 2002

Toby Harris, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, is to ask the Met to look at new ways of dealing with non-urgent calls from the public that could mark the return of police ‘boxes’ to the streets of London.

Toby said:

“We need to encourage people to phone their local police station rather than dial 999 when they have a non-critical problem to report.

“Too often the emergency 999 lines are clogged with people reporting minor incidents because they don’t know how to get in touch with the police in their own neighbourhood.

“I want to see a return to the days when people could call police quickly and easily by picking up a phone in a public location.

“We could bring the old style police ‘boxes’ up to date by using latest technology, such as touch screens, at locations that are familiar and easy to access, like bus stops. Calls would go automatically to operators who would redirect them to the appropriate police station.

“The Met is already experimenting with new-style police kiosks in the London borough of Haringey as another way of providing greater police visibility and access for the people of London.

“I will be calling upon the Met, which is also running a campaign to encourage people to make non urgent calls to their local police stations, to conduct a feasibility study into the idea. A pilot scheme could be run in one or two boroughs to see how well it would work.”

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