Residents will have to wait until late November for the precinct to reopen, after it was temporarily closed in February.
In August, the Greater Hornby Residents Association was told the station had closed because a previous front desk staff member had been transferred to Rolleston and the replacement, who had been trained up, had decided to leave.
A closed “until further notice” sign hung on the station door, telling people to call ahead in case of “unforseen closures” and directing them to go to the central station 16 minutes away.
Sergeant Logan Straton, in his reply to the GHRA, said a second recruitment drive closed in August and the aim was to have the station open in eight weeks, which would have been about October 17.
A police spokesperson said the public counter where people can actively enter the building and make a written complaint or statement will be open 9am-4pm from late November, and will be manned by a constable at the desk.
At the moment, staff are working from the station regularly, but they are not front counter staff.
“They handle serious crashes, (SCU) highway patrol work, youth aid services, to name a few, and work in the community or out on the roads during some of their shifts but they are there to assist that constable in an emergency if need be,” they said.
There is still a team of frontline constables who work the entire Christchurch metropolitan area and are available 24/7 through 111.
GHRA chairman Marc Duff said he had received feedback from residents that they were relieved the station was opening and it was “about time.”
“I haven’t experienced it personally, but I think there’s a perception amongst the community that crime is on the rise.”
He noted the station reopening gave the community an opportunity to report criminal activity locally, as there was a worry in the past that people would not travel into town to report crime.
“I think it will give us more accurate figures on the crime in our area, that people know the police station’s open in our area and they’ve got somewhere to report a lot more conveniently.”
