New police stations will be built at Rutherglen and Tangambalanga next year with a completion date set for 2019.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A capital works team will travel to the two towns to determine how much each replacement building will cost after an assessment of the existing stations.
In response to rising crime rates the Victorian government will invest $2 billion to build 10 new stations across the state and increase recruitment to Victoria Police by 20 per cent over the next four years.
It announced plans in April to rebuild the Bright station at a cost of $3.25 million and a new station at Corryong for $3.21 million.
National Party veteran Ken Jasper, who lobbied for a new Rutherglen station to be built during his time as the state member for Murray Valley, welcomed the move.
"It’s a great result and certainly high time Rutherglen had a new station," he told The Border Mail.
"The demand for Rutherglen police is ever-increasing as it also takes in Wahgunyah.”
Mr Jasper had overseen works to enlarge and improve Rutherglen police station in 2004 but said it needed to be bigger.
“When they renovated it was good, but even when they finished it, it wasn't as complete as it should’ve been,” he said.
Benambra MP Bill Tilley, who was a policeman for 12 years, said the need for a new Rutherglen station was well overdue.
“I know what the conditions there have been like for decades,” he said. “There’s no holding cell, you’re processing the offenders in the same place you eat.”
Tangambalanga is one of the 103 one-officer police stations in Victoria.
Premier Daniel Andrews met with Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton in Melbourne on Sunday to sign an agreement which would see 2729 police recruited over four years.
This comes on top of the 406 new police funded in the 2016-17 budget and being recruited now, bringing the total number of new police to 3135. Opposition police spokesman Edward O'Donohue said extra police was only one part of the equation to fix the justice system.
It’s a great result and certainly high time Rutherglen had a new station
- National Party veteran Ken Jasper