McGuinness Welcomes Cookstown Police College

Heralding a 'new dawn' for the police and the nationalist community, Sinn Féin MP for Mid-Ulster Martin McGuinness has today given his fulsome support to the location of the new, long-awaited police training facility in Cookstown.

The NI Assembly's Deputy First Minister said that the decision to site the PSNI Training College there must mark the start of an entirely new relationship between the PSNI and the nationalist and republican community.

Mr McGuinness said: "Aside from the obvious economic benefits the decision to site the new college will have for the Cookstown area the key function of this new facility must be to build a new relationship between the PSNI and the nationalist and republican community.

"In this area in the past the nationalist and republican community have rightly viewed policing with deep suspicion," he said.

"The PSNI must now demonstrate clearly that they can police this community impartially and it is vital that the PSNI 'cast off' any remaining vestiges of the old RUC and the closure of the Garnerville training college and its replacement with the one in Cookstown is part of all of this.

"It is crucial that from the very first day recruits are surrounded by the new policing ethos demanded by the Good Friday Agreement.

"As part of the business case for this new college opportunities are there for all-Ireland training and training for other emergency services.

"It is important that this happens on the Cookstown site also," he concluded.

However, the new facility is a long time in planning, being first agreed in 2004 when the NI Policing Board made its final decision to build the college at Cookstown.

At the time they said it will be built on a 210-acre site beside a food science centre at Desertcreat on the outskirts of the town.

It is already well behind schedule as it was initially expected to open in 2007 at a projected cost of about £80m.

The Mid Ulster UUP MLA Billy Armstrong has also welcomed the news that funds have been agreed for the construction of the Police, Prison, and Fire Services Training College.

"This is good news for Mid-Ulster. There were many problems to solve and obstacles to get over with regards to funding, but they have been overcome and we look forward to the details of this to be released next week."

He said that work is to set to commence on the College within a year and it should be completed by 2012.

See: NI Police College Proposal Gains Planning Approval

(BMcC)