How many officers are allocated to police St Ives? You might think very few, based on their visibility. It's infrequent an officer of any kind is seen around the town. Generally the view is of them flashing by in a police car. It is a truly rare event to see a uniform on the streets. So what's your estimate? A couple? Three?
Based on a Freedom of Information request, the average number of officers allocated to police St Ives in 2017 was almost nine. Two officers and just under seven PCSOs. Really? Where were they, and what were they doing?
It's even more of a puzzle when you consider how many police officers it appears we should have. The population of St Ives is 2% of Cambridgeshire county's population. (17,100/849,000). Shouldn't we therefore have 2% of Cambridgeshire's police resources? Police & Crime Commissioner Jason Ablewhite stated his budget for 2017/18 is 1,349 police officers. Of these, 1,047 are described as local policing officers. And 2% of them is 21 officers.
So if St Ives should have 21 local policing officers, and we have almost 9, where is the balance of 12? Maybe there's a flaw in the calculations or logic. Maybe not. Sounds like a good question to put to Mr Ablewhite. See the letter below.
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Absolutely agree we need more officers. I would also say that, even with the supposed just under 9 officers, I think they have technically four possible options for when they work - day shift, late shift, night shift or day off. So we probably only have two and a bit officers on each of those shifts at any one time, so even less available at one time to cover the area - potentially only 4 at once at crossover times, assuming none of them is on holiday or off sick or giving evidence in court. No wonder we rarely see anyone! Feel sorry for the flack they get when trying to cover such a populated area with so few people, it's an impossible situation for them.
ReplyDeleteA good point you make. I'd guess it's very frustrating for our police officers to know there isn't enough of them to do all that's expected. It might help if we had nearer to the number we pay our taxes for... 21.
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