THERE is a huge sense of inevitability about this week's announcement that the current Keighley Police Station will close.

A massive question mark has hung over the Airedale House building for many months, indeed years.

An official line was maintained by West Yorkshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson, that the premises' future was "under review".

But most people, having witnessed the steady erosion of provision at the Royd Ings Avenue site, had already made up their own minds that the station's days were numbered.

And they have been proved right.

Now, with the decision to sell-off the complex formally declared, it is time to look to the future.

Many people will welcome the return to the town centre of a police base.

The groundswell of opinion was against any move in the first place to the industrial Royd Ings area.

However, several assurances must be gleaned as the process of change kicks in.

Suitable, alternative premises have to be identified and readied for occupation before the existing site shuts.

We must be guaranteed that the move will not lead to any erosion of police numbers in the town.

And the procedure has to be completed as quickly as is feasible.

The last thing anyone wants or needs is for this issue to drag on for more years.