Halton Hills and Milton will be getting a new police station to serve both towns.
Halton Regional Police Service held a ground-breaking ceremony today (May 8) for the 66,000-square-foot police station that’s expected to open early in 2026. The new station will be located in Halton Hills on an extension of Hornby Road south of Steeles Avenue, next to Hornby Park.
The new 1 District police station will replace both the Milton station at 490 Childs Dr. and the Georgetown station at 217 Guelph St., bringing the staff from both into a single building.
The new station has been in the works since 2015, but it took time to find a location and purchase land for it. Halton Police also had another big project underway during that time - its new headquarters in Oakville, which was completed in 2018.
Though it will move stations out of both Milton and Georgetown urban areas, Halton Police Chief Stephen Tanner said he doesn’t believe it will affect response times. He said police will continue to patrol both towns, just as they do now.
“All our front-line service is done by vehicle,” he said. “This is just sort of the beehive that everyone comes out of.”
The new station will accommodate 390 staff. It will serve as the 1 District operations centre, will be a collision reporting centre and prisoner lock-up space. The current Milton building has been the operations centre for 1 Division since 1997.
“Staff is going to continue to grow. This will get them into an up-to-date, professional building for them to do what we do these days,” Tanner said. “That includes simple things like sufficient locker space, to house equipment, to report rooms and offices that are large enough.”
The new building will also be equipped with rooftop solar panels that will significantly reduce electrical consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re very excited to have this beautiful facility coming to our community,” said Halton Hills Mayor Ann Lawlor. “We’re very proud of it.”
Milton Mayor Gord Krantz said the new station, much like the Steeles Avenue corridor, “is another way of connecting with our neighbours.”
Though the station is in Halton Hills, Tanner pointed out that it’s actually closer to downtown Milton. The chief also believes that it won’t be long before another station in Halton Hills is needed.
“Probably within the next few years, we’ll outgrow this building, because Milton is continuing to explode, Halton Hills is growing and we have to grow with that to provide the service,” he said.
“At that point, I think there will be another Halton Regional Police building in Halton Hills, in Georgetown, maybe near the town hall. And then we’ll have a fourth district with their own command units.”
Tanner said the current Georgetown detachment will not close immediately, remaining open as a store front and used for storage until a new station in Georgetown is built. Though not all the logistics have been worked out, Tanner said it’s possible the existing station could be used for criminal record checks, lost and found property, and possibly even a collision reporting centre.