Goulburn is set to benefit from a new police station, if the Liberals/Nationals government stays in power come the March state election.
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NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Police Minister Troy Grant made the announcement about building the new station in Goulburn at the attestation parade for Class 336 at the NSW Police Academy on Friday.
In a statement, Ms Berejiklian said the Liberals-led NSW Government would grant $100 million to build or upgrade stations across the state as well as a state-of-the-art, $35 million police training facility at Dubbo.
"The funding will be used to build new police stations in Goulburn, Bega and Jindabyne, and carry out major police station upgrades at Bathurst and Bourke," Ms Berejiklian said.
The Premier confirmed in an interview that the current police station in Goulburn would be replaced by a new one.
"The Goulburn Police Station is in a very old, heritage building and that will now be replaced by a brand new police station. We are proud of this investment. This will give local police a huge boost," Ms Berejiklian said.
A spokesperson for Police Minister Troy Grant later confirmed the only way to guarantee the funding was if the Liberals and Nationals retained government.
"While we have committed the funding for these stations, we can’t guarantee that those funds would not be re-directed elsewhere if the Liberals and Nationals were not to retain government," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also confirmed the new building would be on the existing site.
Member for Goulburn Pru Goward also said in an interview that the current Goulburn Police Station building had possibly outlived its use, so a new building would be welcome.
"Goulburn has a very old police station that is almost not fit for purpose and the thought of having A-grade facilities with all the connectivity that police need - including safe rooms for victims of domestic violence, for example - would be a great step forward for our facilities here," Ms Goward said.
She said NSW Police had been looking at the issue for over a year, and that it may prove hard to redevelop the current site. "The station is old. There are lots of advantages of it being in Sloane Street with easy access, but it is so hard to redevelop that site," Ms Goward said.
"They are going to have to decide where to from here, and that is [Liberal candidate] Wendy Tuckerman's job to drive that, but I will say they have been looking at this for over a year.
"We think we got a big slice of this money because of the size of the Hume Local Area Command [now Hume Police District] that is also based in Goulburn."
The current police station, a heritage building, was one of Goulburn's first hospitals.