Gold Coast set to get massive new police warehouse in Arundel housing RAP by 2020

A NEW $11.4m police hub being built right in the middle of the Gold Coast will have the potential to house at least 200 officers as the future of mobile policing grows even closer.

THE way the Gold Coast is policed is continually evolving and by 2020, a step into the future of mobile policing will be closer.

A new warehouse-style building will house the Rapid Action Patrol group (RAP), about 100 officers, but it is expected to grow in size and force capability into the future.

It will be located at Arundel, smack bang in the middle of the Gold Coast police district, and is expected to be up and running by January 2020.

Gold Coast RAP squad conducting raids on associates of criminal motorcycle gangs. Pics Adam Head

Sitting close to the M1 and the Smith St Motorway, it will be ideally placed to respond quickly to incidents or crime waves in any area of the Coast.

Acting Chief Superintendent Dave Cuskelly said discussions on how to boost the way the Gold Coast is policed started in 2016, and from that the new hub-style police building was born.

Artistic impressions of the new building. Picture Mike Batterham

“It all started in 2016 when we started envisaging our strategic direction we want to hit in the next five, 10, 15 years and there were a couple of realisations we made. Our RAP lease at Varsity Lakes is finishing in early 2020 — that was one of the considerations,” Supt Cuskelly said.

FIRST $2.4M DEPLOYED TO STARTING POLICE HUB

“It (the Arundel site) will be multifunctional capability, incorporating the RAP. It will also have the potential to house a whole heap of things because of the unique type of template we’re going to choose for the flooring of it.

“It’s a large space. Although we’ve got over 100 people in the RAP, this has got the potential to accommodate up to twice that.”

A new site at Arundel will be the future spot for a warehouse style policing unit. Photo of Acting Chief Superintendent Dave Cuskelly at the site. Photo by Richard Gosling

But construction of the hub building and a move into the future of a more mobile policing force would not result in the closure of local police stations.

“This doesn’t mean the end of the traditional police station at all. There will always be a need for our community to be able to directly connect to their local police,’’ he said.

“That’s changing with generations as well. The expectations of a senior resident at Coolangatta may vary from a young executive couple in the northern end of the district.

More plans of the site. Picture Mike Batterham

“We need to be flexible and agile enough in our response to cater for those people and give them what they expect as service, or what they consider is suitable service.

“There will always be a need to have that face-to-face contact, where we can talk to people and they can access their police service.”

Supt Cuskelly said although police numbers would always be a point of conversation, the service also needed to think about how it could police smarter rather than harder.

Police Minister Mark Ryan with Assistant Commissioner Brian Codd and former chief superintendent Marty Mickelson (on right) during a tour of a block of land in Arundel earlier this year. Picture Mike Batterham

“We need to make sure the conversation, as far as how we deliver services across the district, is beyond police numbers,’’ he said.

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“Police numbers are very important, but so is the way we push our resources across the district, regardless of location. At one moment it might exist in the southern part of the district, the next it could be in the north.

“We need to be agile enough, mobile enough, in the way we deal with our response.

“Initiatives like this are the backbone to realising that mobility, so that we have a lot of police out on the road 24/7 and we will push them, where they need be.”