New police station in Oldham may have no holding cells
Reporter: Charlotte Hall, Local Democracy Reporter
Date published: 22 July 2025
Oldham police station. Image courtesy of Geograph/Paul Anderson
Plans for a new Greater Manchester police station have been slammed as ‘poor and impractical’ after it emerged the new site may have no holding cells.
Oldham Council is currently in discussion with GMP to replace the borough’s town centre station, which is reportedly ‘falling apart’.
The custody area at the Barn Street site is currently off limits due to health and safety concerns, meaning officers have to travel all the way to Tameside or further afield to book suspects.
Council leaders said giving the force direct access to cells in Oldham was a crucial reason for the move, and claimed they had received ‘personal assurances’ from the Chief Constable about the plans.
But a letter sent by the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester Kate Green, who leads on the region’s Police and Crime plan, confirmed there was ‘no immediate intention to locate a custody suite at Oldham’.
Green wrote: “Following the opening of Longsight expected next year, GMP will have sufficient capacity across the city-region.
"In addition, the design of Longsight will enable much faster turnaround times, so that officer travel time will be significantly mitigated by more efficient processing of detainees.
“This means there is no immediate intention to locate a custody suite at Oldham, but it may be sensible to future-proof the design of the site to enable this in future if needed.”
It can take between 20 minutes and up to an hour to travel from Oldham town centre to Limesight police station, which is currently undergoing renovation.
This would mean even just dropping off detainees and returning to Oldham would take an officer 40 minutes without traffic.
Local councillor Sam Al-Hamdani called the new plans ‘poor and impractical’.
The Liberal Democrat councillor said: “People in Oldham regularly bring up the lack of visible policing on our streets, and are rightly angry when they hear that there is literally nowhere in Oldham to take someone who has been arrested.
"It needs to be sorted out, and I cannot understand why there is no plan to have custody suites in a new station.
"This is the perfect opportunity to fix this issue.”
The LDRS understands that the Deputy Mayor’s stance came as a surprise to the Oldham Council leadership.
GMP did not wish to comment.
GMCA did not respond to a request for comment.
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