Police centre up by £50m

The completion of the academy, planned for a 270-acre site near Cookstown, County Tyrone, has also been put back to 2009, a year later than originally planned.

The initial cost for the scheme was put at £80m when plans were first announced in February 2004. The project will replace the outdated Garnerville complex in east Belfast for the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

The service’s deputy chief constable Paul Leighton said the extra costs were largely on land costs, fees for architectural work and changes to the original plan. Other extra work needed includes wildlife, archaeological and heritage surveys.

A revised business case for the project has been sent to the Treasury in a bid to secure the finances needed to tender the project next year. Leighton stressed the project was a unique one and that the rise was not significant if you took building inflation into account. “There will be nothing like it in Europe or America,” he said. “It will be so state-of-the-art it will attract a lot of interest.”

There will be nothing like it in Europe or America. It will be so state-of-the-art it will attract a lot of interest

Paul Leighton, deputy chief constable, NI Police Service

Policing board representative and property developer Barry Gilligan also played down the cost surge, claiming the actual costs had only risen by 8%. “The product has changed so dramatically that, in my opinion and the unanimous opinion of the board, we are getting a significantly better product for the additional costs,” he said. “No college we visited will have the comprehensive range of facilities we are going to end up with here.”

The project will include 300 accommodation rooms, a specially erected village for public order training and a decontamination unit to prepare for a biological or chemical attack. A train carriage, aircraft fuselage and on-site bank to simulate hijackings and robberies have also been included in the blueprint.