Police continue to book on at Wilmslow station 'for the immediate future'

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Cheshire Police is currently undergoing a reorganisation of how it polices local communities, with a number of changes being introduced from today (Monday, 6th July).

These include replacing the nineteen Neighbourhood Policing Units with eight Local Policing Units which means some Police Officers and PCSOs will be briefed at stations outside of their beat before travelling to start their shift.

However, local members of staff will continue to book on at Wilmslow Station "for the immediate future".

Following a pilot in Ellesmere Port, the Constabulary is moving to implement the Local Policing Unit model across the country.

The new Local Policing Units bring together staff involved in responding to calls, neighbourhood problem solving, intelligence officers and investigators to start their shift together and be briefed across the teams simultaneously.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Roberts explained "The pilot showed by bringing together staff in this way produced major benefits as they were able to share their knowledge and maximise opportunities for working across teams, better supervision and leadership and ensured the right person was sent to deal with the crime or incident at the earliest opportunity.

"Bringing staff on in one place will also allow the organisation to make better choices concerning the use of resources such as the vehicle fleet to get more efficient use of patrol cars to get to where we are needed when we are needed quickly whilst maintaining a local visible presence with officers on foot patrol in their local community."

Mark Roberts continued "Detailed work has been has been carried out to ensure the move to bring staff together at the beginning of the shift in this way adds value to their work and delivers more visible patrol time in communities. Time spent travelling between booking on stations and beats has been looked at, and whilst it will be kept under review, we are confident that it will not impact on the service we provide to the public."

The stations where officers will start the shifts will be: Blacon in Chester, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Widnes, Runcorn, Warrington, Macclesfield, and Crewe with Wilmslow remaining as booking on station for staff "for the immediate future".

ACC Mark Roberts said "We have also put in place local community bases for officers to work from and are providing officers with mobile technology (tablet devices) which means they will be spending more of their time in their communities without returning to stations to update or research tasks."

Despite having to make a further £30m worth of savings over the next four years, Cheshire Police has announced they will be putting more officers into front line policing. They will be recruiting 53 new police officers, maintaining the current level of PCSOs and allocating a PCSO to every electoral ward. 

ACC Mark Roberts added "To achieve this, we have streamlined management costs and made significant non-pay savings.

"This move follows a review of spending to assess how we can be more efficient and meet current and future operational and financial challenges by making different choices about how we use our assets and resources."

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Wilmslow Police Station
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Comments

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DELETED ACCOUNT
Monday 6th July 2015 at 1:34 pm
So Wilmslow is not part of the 8 units for the long term. Rather it is to be used for "booking on" for the immediate future". Presumably this means that it will be used whilst negotiations take place with Stockport for a "joint booking on" station - situated in Stockport, with a view to transferring its functions long term to them.
Pete Taylor
Monday 6th July 2015 at 2:45 pm
I recall that one of the prime reasons for building this "new" police station was that the cell accommodation in the "old" one were no longer fit for purpose and the new station would have a state of the art "custody suite", so villains could quickly be processed and the cops could get back on the job. Of course that was closed down a few years ago and all miscreants detained in Wilmslow had then to be taken away to somewhere far-flung (like Winsford?).

Let me guess which piece of CEC land/family silver will be up for sale to developers at a knock-down price next? Of course it will make an excellent brownfield site for affordable housing for key workers.

Excellent news about the 53 additional officers.
Pete Taylor
Monday 6th July 2015 at 10:53 pm
Actually; I've just read those statistics again and they might not stack up: there seem to be 53 wards in CEC territory, so that is one extra "officer" per ward, they are maintaining the current level of PCSOs... but currently they cover more than one ward, yet they will be "allocating a PCSO to every ward"!
I would be interested to know what the "local community bases" are for these officers and, presumably, they will still be allowed meal and rest breaks; where will they be taking these?

Can't help thinking that our MP might be squeezing things rather too much and something will have to give.
Stuart Redgard
Wednesday 5th August 2015 at 9:51 pm
I have now heard from two independent sources who currently 'book on' on in Wilmslow that the police station will be affectively closing as an operational police station. All that will remain open is the help desk staffed by civilian staff as at present with no "Warrant holding Police officers" present. Maybe this is something Lisa might want to investigate further.