In recent weeks residents have been requested to ask questions regarding the proposed relocation of our police station and the deployment of our response team to Bishop Auckland. Some of the questions I have received are:
1 – What are the current response times to serious incidents in Newton Aycliffe and what do you expect response times to be when you move our response officers?
2 – The police and crime commissioners plan says police are investing in Neighbourhood policing, how is this the case when our town centre hub is expected to close?
3 – PCCs glossy pamphlet proclaims that they are protecting frontline policing to keep communities safer, stronger and more secure. How does this apply to Newton Aycliffe?
4 – PCCs pamphlet police are putting more police back on our streets. How do you expect this to apply in Newton Aycliffe?
5 – What is the cost of maintaining a police station in Newton Aycliffe and what savings do you expect to make?
6 – Do you intend to keep any response vehicles in Newton Aycliffe?
7 – How are residents to feel safer if you move the police station?
8 – The situation we are faced with in Newton Aycliffe has exposed a level of inconceivable incompetence demonstrated over the previous decade by police management. Policing by consent(!) At no time have I, as a resident of Newton Aycliffe, given my consent to a reduction of an already thin blue line being stretched even further by relocating our response team to Bishop Auckland, furthermore I have requested more bobbies every time we have met over the previous few years. My question therefore is, are you happy with the situation in Newton Aycliffe and do you have a statement you would like to make to the people of the south western division of County Durham?
9 – Is this the thin end of the wedge whereby policing in general is to be reduced across our county?
10 – I find it hard to believe that systemic failure has occurred under successive PCC supervision. What on earth have you and your predecessor been doing in the last decade, we, the public, thought that the whole purpose of the job was to scrutinise and hold to account Durham Constabulary?
11 – So where do we lay the blame?
12 – Whose logical thinking thought it was a good idea to rent a cop shop when we had land to build on next door?
13 – Why weren’t opportunities, such as acquiring the library or the cubby, exploited?
14 – The current situation should have been anticipated over the previous decade, has there been no planning, or medium-term plan, taken place by yourself or your two predecessors?
15 – Has this situation not been looked at during a SWOT analysis?
16 – If our current Chief Inspector had not bailed out from this mess, would you have asked for her resignation?
17 – As the responsible person for policing in County Durham, are you considering resignation in taking responsibility for this?
18 – Do you see the current situation as incompetence or is it just contempt for the people you promised to serve when elected?
19 – As our schools have now broken up for summer can we expect to see increased patrols of our town by Neighbourhood police officers?
Cllr Ken Robson
01325 321471, 07443 046804, 03000 269 058