Shropshire police response targets being met

Nav Malik, Policing Superintendent for Telford & Wrekin, told a meeting last night police officers were responding to 98 per cent of incidents on time. He said full statistics would be released shortly.

It comes despite some of the smaller police stations in Shropshire closing down last year, including Ironbridge, Albrighton, Ellesmere and Newport.

Superintendent Malik said: "We found that police buildings do not offer protection – officers do.

"We track officers and where they are and then we can respond to each call as fast as we can.

"Police buildings are an ideal, but having officers near is more important."

The number of police stations across the West Mercia area was reduced from 21 to 11 in a bid to save £20 million.

Also at last night's meeting at Malinsgate Police Station in Telford was deputy police and crime commissioner Barrie Sheldon.

He was standing in for commissioner Bill Longmore, who could not attend as he had been interviewing in Worcestershire during the day.

Mr Sheldon said: "The move meant we didn't need so many sergeants and we could make savings.

"We have more officers out on the ground responding to incidents. People were worried whether police would response fast enough to incidents.

"But we are now six months in and response rates are being met – and in some cases they have improved."

But Mr Sheldon admitted he is concerned about West Mercia Police needing to make a further £22million in savings by 2019. He said: "That causes me and Bill a lot of concern. When is enough enough? We are now sharing our resources with Warwickshire police and achieving lots of efficiencies.We need more time to embed these processes."