WARMINSTER Police Station could potentially be the home of Wiltshire’s new custody suite, replacing the existing unit in Melksham.

A feasibility report will run until the end of the year to find a suitable location for the new unit, as Wiltshire Police look to restructure in a bid to save money and time transporting those in custody.

Police and Crime Commissioner for Swindon and Wiltshire, Angus Macpherson, said: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could develop that site [Warminster Police Station].

“The feasibility report will undoubtedly start with what do we own and what could we put on it and it will develop from there and I think it would be very mad to start anywhere else, but if we can’t build there we move forward from that.

“As a building it’s not a modern building and I think as part of the wider estate strategy I would not be surprised to see that building altered.

“If the custody went onto it we’d look to put other things into it, including your local neighbourhood policing team but it’s not a building that you could easily convert.

“It sits on a site that is being talked about locally for a campus of sorts, it cries out for regeneration I don’t doubt that.”

The Warminster custody centre would be built to serve Salisbury and south Wiltshire, while Swindon’s custody suite at Gablecross would remain open to deal with people arrested in North Wiltshire.

The new unit, which would be estimated to cost around £7million, would mean a closure of the unit in Melksham and a new suite in Salisbury would not be built as previously suggested.

Despite being only ten years old, the unit in Melksham along with the police station could potentially be sold, according to Mr Macpherson.

He said: “You can’t service the whole of the county from it and what we’re looking for is a solution that services the whole of the county.

“The other issue Melksham has is the issue of communications for those leaving custody, if you’re released from custody in Melksham it’s not in the middle of Melksham and this [new] suite has that great benefit for the users of custody.

“In Warminster if we develop that site [the police station], it’s bang in the middle and great for community policing, Melksham is not a great place.

“We’d probably sell the site as the custody suite is a major part of that and the rest of it is offices but I don’t know that we would.

“You wouldn’t do that unless you had got the provision of the campus or an alternative provision.”