PORTSMOUTH — Portsmouth voters overwhelmingly approved a $10 million bond issue to build a new police station that will replace the current one on East Main Road.

Question No. 8 was approved easily, 4,620 votes (58.9 percent) to 3,225 (41.1 percent).

The architectural firm Drummey Rosane Anderson, Inc. recommended building a new 22,0000-square-foot, two-story police station on land behind the current building on East Main Road.

The current 5,000-square-foot police station was built 41 years ago, when the town was much smaller in population and placed far fewer demands on police, Police Chief Thomas Lee said.

Advocates for approving the question say the current station is cramped, outdated and woefully inadequate for a modern-day police force.

“I think it’s an investment for the town — a capital project that needs to be done,” said Town Council member Kevin Aguiar, who won a second term on the panel and was a supporter of the plan from the beginning.

“Now we have to work on the budget and do something there to get control of it, but at the end of the day our police men and women need a new facility and I think we owe it to them to do that.”