A POLITICAL row has broken out over plans to close two police stations in Birkenhead and replace them with an advanced new area command centre.

Councillors in Wallasey fear the proposals will see the police station in Manor Road, Wallasey, downgraded.

Last night Merseyside Police Authority confirmed that if the new station is built it will mean the area commander, currently Chief Supt Jon Ward, would be based there.

But the authority denied any decisions had been made about the location of patrol cars, despite councillors saying they had been told these too would be based at the new Birkenhead station, with Beaufort Road in Birkenhead the preferred location.

The chairman of Merseyside Police Authority, Bill Weightman, told Wirral councillors that the borough is the first area on Merseyside to be considered for a new police command centre.

Yet although Merseyside Police Authority repeatedly reassured councillors at the meeting that, if the preferred site is achieved, only the future of Laird Street and Birkenhead Police Stations would be considered, councillors told the Daily Post last night that this was qualified with “in the foreseeable future”

Leah Fraser, Liscard councillor and prospective Conservative challenger to Wallasey MP Angela Eagle, said she was told in the meeting that police cars would be based in Birken- head under the proposed scheme.

She said: “Geographically, Wallasey is separated from Birkenhead by a dock system, here’s hoping that crime doesn’t take place when the bridges between Wallasey and Birkenhead are out of action or it’s rush hour.”

But Cllr Weightman said “Should this investment go ahead as planned, and I’m hopeful it will, I can assure the people of Wirral that closures of other police stations across the peninsular are not up for discussion.

“I think it’s time to stop talking of police stations closing across Wirral.”

OPINION: PAGE 12

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