The campaign to fight soaring crime and to make Mitchell’s Plain in the Western Cape a safer place, received a major boost when Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi accompanied by Public Works Deputy Minister Jeremy Cronin, handed over a fully-constructed multi million rand modern police station and the state-of-the-art criminal record centre in Lentegeur in the Cape Flats.
The police station will serve several areas including Woodlands, Colorado Park, Lentegeur East and West and Mandalay. Mitchell’s Plain is in the top10 areas plagued by violent crimes and has the seventh highest recorded murders in the Western Cape.
About 750 people, of whom 30% came from local communities, were employed during the construction of the facility. They were sourced through the database of the local sub-council. Of the 750 people, around 66 of them including about 20 women, were trained and skilled in different building industry trades in line with the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). These included carpenters, brick-layers, painters and electricians.
The police station comprises multi-storey buildings with six holding cells and numerous offices. It will house a compliment of detectives and members of the visible policing unit.
Next to the police station, is the state of the art local criminal record centre, the only such facility in the Cape Flats, which houses laboratories for forensic evidence such as finger-prints and ballistic data.
The criminal record centre will be used by police stations from several areas in the Western Cape.
