Centralised policing? No thank you

2:21pm Wednesday 27th August 2008

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WE now learn of plans by the police to close police stations across Wirral and replace these with a central command centre.

Local police stations will be replaced by “smaller access points.”

In broad terms, whereas Government plans on a national scale to amalgamate area police forces were successfully resisted, it would now appear that the Merseyside Force has succumbed to the doubtful imperative that policing is just one more function that would benefit from centralisation.

The concept of “smaller access points” is I fear just a euphemism for a simple telephone point and I am not persuaded that that this will do anything to reassure local communities and make our streets any safer.

Indeed, will we now be facing the prospect of even more police cars chasing about clanging their sirens as they make their way at high speed to the boundaries of Wirral policing responsibility?

How many more of these high- speed dashes and pursuits will result in innocent civilians becoming victims in terms of road death and injury?

In my opinion the police continue to fail to grasp that the problems on our streets will not be defeated by abandoning police stations but on the contrary by making existing stations more visible in terms of officers on the streets.

This proposal is not the way forward.

It is a waste of money and police resources and will send the wrong signals to criminal community.

David Kirwan, Independent councillor, Wirral Borough Council.