The new £26m development provides 6,000m2 of flexible office accommodation which forms the new Exeter Police Station, combined with a new 40 cell custody suite. Innovative in its design, the building perfectly strikes a balance between it being publicly accessible on one side to housing specialist units on the other.
When our bluelight team began working on this scheme, it had planning consent but the original scheme wasn’t implementable due to a number of non-compliances and poor operational flows. Maintaining the basic envelope for which planning consent was achieved, we have completely redesigned the building whilst addressing the non-compliant aspects, making it safe and significantly improving the operational efficiency such as custody processing times. Crucially we have also improved the working environment both within the custody space and the offices.
The resulting development was delivered on time and within budget. The scheme challenged the traditional convention of a very cellular building to provide an open-plan office that encourages the use of the open-plan areas by giving them the best views out and daylight. There are breakout spaces and private telephone booths, as well as a focus on natural light and optimal acoustics. Accompanying that is a modern, spacious custody suite for those working on the frontline.
