‘Reducing desk hours saves officers’ jobs’
Bath’s MP has told the region’s police boss the city needs a proper police station – but the commissioner says it already has one. Wera Hobhouse and Sue Mountstevens appeared on BBC Bristol last week as Bath residents expressed their fears about their personal safety. Bath lost its police station nearly three years ago when the building was sold to the University of Bath. And now the police enquiry desk at the One Stop Shop over the road in Manvers Street is about to have its opening hours halved. Outraged at the “ridiculous” cuts, Bath’s Liberal Democrat MP has called for the return of a “proper” police station in Manvers Street. And, as reported in last week’s Chronicle, a petition has been launched to keep the enquiry desk open at weekends. But Ms Mountstevens, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset, told the BBC she had been forced to sell the old police station building and cut the enquiry desk opening hours to protect the jobs of frontline officers. She said Bath may get a replacement police station building in future if her efforts to secure more government funding for Avon and Somerset Police pay off. Ms Mountstevens said: “At the moment I would say that we do have a police station [in Bath]. We have a front office desk in Manvers Street and then we have, on a separate site, admittedly, an office where the police have their lockers and their computers and they respond from there. So we do have a police station but it is over two sites. “I could have kept the Manvers Street police station open. It was far too big. We were only using several floors and it cost £200,000 a year to keep it maintained. By selling it, I was able to protect 140 police officers’ jobs. That is what keeps people safe. It’s the number of police officers and PCSOS that we see on the streets. “In Bath that number has not been cut. In 2016, I ring-fenced neighbourhood policing and that will continue until 2020. “The reason I’m reducing the hours [of the enquiry desk] is because I need to protect police officers’ jobs and the whole point is that not many people use the front office desk. But there is going to be one there. I guarantee there will always will be one in Bath but it is only going to be open Mondays to Fridays. “I really value that we have something in Bath. But there is choice whether we spend money on officers or whether we spend it on buildings. “There may well be a building at some time in the future but we need more money from central government and there doesn’t seem to be any idea that that’s coming our way.” But some Bath residents were unconvinced and said the current policing situation in Bath in the city was an insult. Resident Veronica Dunning told Bath Live the cuts to the enquiry desk were “adding insult to injury”. “It has been apparent for some time that the residents of Bath, that is ratepayers and tax payers, are considered of no importance,” Ms Dunning said. “Now it is obvious that this extends to students, tourists and visitors alike. “The enquiry office itself is an insult to this crowded, wild west city. “Now even this will have even less access. This situation must be rectified.” “It’s “ridiculous” that a city the size of Bath, with a population of 90,000 and millions of tourists, that we don’t have a police station.” There is a small office at the back of Lower Bristol Road. She added: “The police and crime commissioner should be attacking the Government for the brutal cuts to public services that makes our people less and less safe and we know that crime is on the rise and nobody can tell me that these things aren’t connected.”