The newly renovated St. George's Police Station will be open and operating next year, according to Home Affairs Minister Sen. David Burch.

Sen. Burch accepted the station's keys on Monday on behalf of the Bermuda Police Service from Minister of Works and Engineering Derrick Burgess.

The building has been closed since last year and just this September Bermuda Drywall & Ceilings Ltd. began work on the necessary upgrades.

It was completed within the scheduled 12 to 13 weeks and came in under budget at $650,000 — $350,000 less than anticipated — according to Mr. Burgess.

But Sen. Burch said the Bermuda Police Service would still need time to equip the station and he hoped to have it open as early as possible next year.

He said: "Now that we are taking delivery of the building, the Bermuda Police Service will immediately set about to equip it so that it can best serve this historic community.

"While I am not able today to announce an opening date for operations, I can assure you that the Bermuda Police Service will work toward having the facilities available as early in 2009 as possible."

Sen. Burch said the Police still needed to finish recruitment and the hiring of five people to be Station Duty Officers.

Once that is complete the St. George's station will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the public to report to these officers.

There will also be office space available for the Eastern Community Action Team (CAT), meetings for the public sponsored by the Police and room for interviewing witnesses.

However, custodial and interviews of arrested persons will remain roles played by the Southside station, which was opened in compliance with the PACE Act last year.

Opposition Leader andSt. George's West MP Kim Swan, said the renovations demonstrated the importance of an Opposition party and he welcomed the work on the new station.

He said: "The St. George's Police Station issue was one that demonstrated one of the important roles of the opposition which is to identify issues that are important nationally or in this instance for a community and to bring them to the forefront.

"I was particularly pleased to have been invited to attend by the Minister having recognised the role the current Minister played in seeing it completed."

The St. George's station has been the centre of heated debate since it closed its doors on January 2 last year due to substandard conditions.

Yesterday, Mr. Burgess said the renovations included new floors and wall tiling, rewiring, a new generator, new air-conditioning, exterior masonry repair and painting, roofing repair and paint, millwork, new windows, acoustical ceilings, dry walling and provision of interview rooms were complete.

He added: "The St. George's Police Station has served the east end community well for generations and I am certain that east enders specifically and the community generally will look with pride upon the exceedingly attractive, completely refreshed building."

Kenneth Bascome, St. George's Deputy Mayor, also welcomed the renovated building.

He said: "On behalf of the corporation and the Town of St. George we are pleased the Government fulfilled their promise that they would renovate and open the station.

"But the point now is they haven't decided what the manpower will be there. We have two banks, a number of business and in the summer we have five to 6,000 visitors and people are saying they never see Police."