NEW police enquiry centres will be open seven days a week in Leamington, Rugby and Stratford as part of a new policing model for Warwickshire.
The new Resolution Centres will be based at the front desks of the towns’ police stations to deal with in-person enquiries and telephone investigations.
Warwickshire Police’s new operating model – introduced following a recent increase in officer numbers – will also introduce three ‘geographical command centres’ covering the North, South and East of the county, to ‘bring together key areas of policing that are best delivered locally’.
Each area will have a dedicated Chief Inspector, supported by a team of Inspectors overseeing local policing teams.
Each command centre will have a dedicated Patrol Investigations Unit to investigate crimes such as assaults, burglaries and medium risk domestic abuse.
A force spokesperson said: “The new geographic approach will lead to improved engagement with local communities and greater accountability for local priorities, increasing the overall number of offences that the force detects.”
A new Prevention Hub – comprising Crime Prevention Officers, Design out Crime officers, a Youth Engagement team and Civil Orders officers – will also be set up to ‘focus on stopping crime before it happens’.
The force is also creating new teams of specialist detectives focused on high-risk crime such as domestic abuse, rape and serious sexual offences, human trafficking, online child sexual exploitation and digital media.
The spokesperson said this would improve the force’s ability to ‘deliver first class investigations, safeguard victims and ensure offenders are brought to justice’.
The force is also investing in offender management, increasing the number of trained officers in the Registered Sex Offender Manager Unit, and investing in technology to improve road safety.
Chief Constable Debbie Tedds said: “These organisational changes enable us to protect communities in an informed, robust and sustainable way.
“Our new officers come with a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and in some cases, previous professional experience. They are an absolutely vital addition to the force, bringing new insight, experience and expertise.
Warwickshire Police now has just over 1,110 officers – the largest number in its 160-year history – due to a combination of increases in the local council tax police precept and funding from the government’s national Police Uplift Programme.
However, there has been a fall in the number of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) on the county’s streets. Home Office statistics showed 24 full-time equivalent PCSOs had been cut from the force since 2015 – down from 82 to 62, a fall of 28 per cent.
In February, Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe told The Observer the force had had difficulty in filling the posts but said he was keen to reverse that position, adding he had given the Chief Constable the resources for 82 PCSOs across Warwickshire.
The force spokesperson added Warwickshire would not ‘see the full impact of additional officer numbers overnight’ due to training requirements.
