Metropolitan Police: Sale by the Yard AS ICONS go, the New Scotland Yard building is unimpressive - a 1960s office block recognisable only by the revolving name plate under which crime reporters stand to dish out the day's diet of murder, corruption and foiled terrorism. Why the outcry over plans revealed this week to put it on the market? For many, it is sheer sentiment. Britain invented policing, and the Metropolitan Police Force - set up in 1829 and run from a building just off a narrow street called Great Scotland Yard - is probably the best-known force in the world. That is partly because writers have spread the brand far and wide. Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins breathed life into fictional Scotland Yard detectives. Sherlock Holmes regularly wrong-footed Inspector Lestrade. Dorothy Sayers's aristocratic sleuth Peter Wimsey encouraged his sister to marry a man from the Yard, though the mésalliance shocked the family. Inspector Japp was a useful foil to Agatha Christie's cleverer Hercule Poirot. But none of these characters walked through the doors of the New Scotland Yard that is for sale. The force moved in 1890 (to a Victorian Gothic edifice that now houses parliamentary overspill) and again in 1967, as policing changed. By 2015 the Met must save £500m ($806.5m) from its annual £3.6 billion budget, responding to cuts in central-government funding. London's mayor, Boris Johnson, promised voters to keep police officers on the streets. That makes savings hard, for staff (not just sworn officers) account for 78% of all costs. But the Met owns around 700 buildings in one of the world's most expensive property markets. By far the biggest is its headquarters, which is said to cost £11m a year to run and require £50m to refurbish. Selling the building could perhaps raise £150m. Moving to a smaller building near the Ministry of Defence which the police already own might save £6.5m a year in running costs. The Met outlined the plan to the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime on October 30th. No decision has been reached, but with the Olympics disappearing in the rear-view mirror, London's finest must now wrestle for real with the cuts that other forces have been struggling with. Selling their headquarters is a plausible start. It is the name "Scotland Yard" that is the icon, not the building. The name has moved home before, and will again.