The plans to close police stations in the capital have been on the horizon for several years with plans to move Police resources in each London borough to central hubs or "patrol bases" able to house more prisoners and deal with more incidents, but with record levels of serious crime London is set to get policing via email in new plans spear-headed by Sir Ian Blair.

The Metropolitan Police several years ago moved all of its CAD operators to call centers in Hendon, Bow and Lambeth, taking this away from local police stations. The move is still regarded as a retrograde step by members of the police, who believed that the CAD operators in local stations had local knowledge and could direct officers to incidents more effectively. The reality is that more and more of the CAD operators that are entering the police have little or no knowledge of local areas, the strategy to give whole geographic areas of London to call centers to manage has been an unmitigated disaster.

The closure of Police stations in local communities again is another blow for good local policing of areas in the capital, with the emphasis on bobbies dealing with crime as opposed to crime support officers.

The Evening Standard reported that the chairman of the Police Federation Peter Smyth saying "The idea of putting police into patrol bases and closing down police stations is against the whole ethos of community policing. The public need to have access to police front-counters and the alternative that is being proposed is to position Safer Neighbourhood Teams in shop type premises. But these teams should be on patrol rather than manning pretend police stations."

The London Daily News ran a poll asking "are you happy with the Metropolitan Police approach in dealing with crime in London?" 91.49 per cent of those who voted said "No I am not happy with the Metropolitan Police". The capital is increasingly losing confidence with the current head of the Met Sir Ian Blair who is spear-heading much of the changes in the police, speaking to the Evening Standard justified the changes being proposed "we have to recognise that the vast amount of contact is now by phone and increasingly by internet."

When Londoners are calling for more police on the streets we are now likely to see more call centers and "policing by email".