Dear Sir,
As a sitting Town and County Councillor I was appalled to hear that we are in danger of losing our police station in the town centre. As some will know I was instrumental with others in encouraging our police to return to the town centre as a result of complaints that nobody knew where to find the police station when it was situated on the Business Park.
Since that time the Neighbourhood Police and reactive police have resided successfully in a small office adjacent to the fire service. What I wasn’t aware of is that the office is only rented from the fire service.
It has now come to light after 10 years that they have been asked to leave these premises by the fire service preferably before December and have been searching for alternative accommodation for several months without success. Had I been aware of this situation I would have encouraged Durham Constabulary to build a new station on land owned at that stage by the police prior to them selling off land to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
At a prolonged meeting of the town council on Wednesday evening councillors probed officers of the police, Our Police & Crime Commissioner and a Deputy Superintendent on how we came to be in this abhorrent situation and what they planned to do to rectify the current dilemma.
It appears that Newton Aycliffe is the busiest area in the south of Durham and cover from Shildon to Trimdon. Criminal and Anti-Social Behaviour are both on the increase and it is feared that if premises cannot be found that our town of just under 30000 people could possibly be reactively policed from Bishop Auckland which in turn would increase the reaction time to get to an incident.
The scariest thing about the current situation is that response officers could be relocated to Bishop Auckland, losing local knowledge of criminal behaviour in Newton Aycliffe and increasing response times, to not only the Aycliffe area, but also to Sedgefield and Trimdon.
Of course, as a mere layman I could only speculate on the effect on crime figures. I would urge members of the public to take action now to encourage a swift resolution to this before it is too late by contacting the:
Durham Police & Crime Commissioner’s Office
Durham Police Headquarters
Aykley Heads
Durham
DH1 5TT
Tel: 0191 375 2001
We deserve a good police presence within our town and demand that action is taken to provide it. On behalf of Newton Aycliffe residents we implore those persons in charge to provide us with the service we deserve.
Cllr Ken Robson
Tel 01325 321471
Mob 07443 046804
Works 03000 269 058.