Calls to investigate police over mast dismantling
City of Durham Parish CouncilA parish council has called for an investigation into why a listed radio mast has not been put back up after being removed nine years ago.
The 160ft-tall (49m), Grade II listed structure was dismantled in 2017 when Durham Police's former headquarters at Aykley Heads was redeveloped.
A condition of the works was the force would have to put the tower back up, but this never occurred. Labour City of Durham parish councillor Rory Handy said it called into question the "consistency and trust" of the planning system.
Durham Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen (PCC), Labour, has been approached for comment.
The mast was built in 1968 by the same firm which engineered the Sydney Opera House.
Handy called it an "important structure of Durham's modern heritage".
The tower has since been "dumped to rot" at the police force's current headquarters, according to a parish council spokesperson.
Durham Police previously sought planning permission to destroy the mast in 2022.
It had said the tower would cost more than £1m to re-erect and maintain, and money would be better spent on recruiting officers. However, it failed in its bid to get permission to do this.
City of Durham Parish CouncilHandy said it was only right the force put the mast back up as it originally said it would.
"Residents and local businesses are rightly expected to comply with planning conditions, and it is only fair that the same expectation applies to public bodies," he said.
Liberal Democrat parish councillor Liz Brown said they were seeking an outside organisation to conduct a "thorough and independent" investigation into what had happened.