VISITING a police station to contact your local bobby is becoming a thing of the past, according to the police chief tasked with improving the force in South Bucks.

Anthony Stansfeld, Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police, is behind a plan to close a number of stations to meet the millions needed in funding cuts.

Downsizing Marlow Police Station is one of the moves to free up cash, with plans to sell of part of the Dean Street site to developers.

And the elected Conservative police chief says a more flexible approach is needed to meet the needs of a growing population.

He told the BFP: “We want to put police where people want to use them - people do not use police stations nearly as much as they used to.

“Some of our stations are manned by volunteers and they are lucky if they see three or four people a day.

“I think within council offices, in libraries, are good places to have someone, but all officers have Blackberries, and increasingly tablets, so they just do not need to go back to the station as much.

“I think Boris Johnson got it right when he said it is police officers that catch criminals, not buildings.”

TVP says it must make savings of £44.6m over the next three years, on top of the £58.9m shaved off its budget since 2011/12.

A series of other closures sees an end to costly leased accommodation such as Bourne End’s neighbourhood office, which will be surrendered to save nearly £25,000 a year.

And other sites including Gerrards Cross and Chesham will be ‘replaced locally’ over the next five years.

Mr Stansfeld added that police headquarters must be fit for purpose, and cannot be justified in today’s financial climate.

He said: “It doesn’t apply to all of the stations but some are very old, so what we need for policing today is different.

“We will keep the ones that are usable and use more efficient ones, which is what is needed.

“With Marlow, we are going to look at retaining the site, or some of it, and some for development.

“But we do not need a police station that size any more. But we are very aware that we do not want to sell it all and see it worth twice as much later on.

“In an ideal world we would not be cutting it at all but even if we weren’t facing cuts we would have to make it more efficient than it is currently.”