Calls for more police bases in parts of Northamptonshire
It follows a council meeting with claims the current service is insufficient.
A council has stood united in its calls for policing hubs across the county to be reinstated as soon as possible, after criticising the current service as ‘insufficient’.
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) will ask to meet with Chief Constable Ivan Balhatchet to discuss the potential of reviewing police resources and the feasibility of setting up new police stations and response units across the breadth of the authority.
The unified message was agreed at a full council meeting on Thursday, March 6, after the council’s Conservative administration asked to change Labour’s motion which was focused solely on a new station in Corby.
Northamptonshire Police Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) Danielle Stone previously announced that the force has been “urgently considering” different options to provide a new policing base in Corby, along with more general plans to introduce 16 different policing hubs across the county.
Proposing the original Corby police station motion, Labour councillor John McGhee told members that the council’s demands would act as a “catalyst” for other projects all over North Northants.
Explaining his group’s particular focus on Corby, he said: “A town this size deserves a police station in the town centre, as do other towns in North Northants, so this is a start. We all know it’s a fact that people feel safe when there’s a police station in the town, not one that’s open a couple of days a week for a few hours a week.”
The current policing hub in the Corby Cube has recently come under criticism from local MP Lee Barron, as it is only open to the public on Mondays and Fridays, between 10am and 4pm. The old Corby police station on Elizabeth Street closed in 2017 under Conservative PFCC Stephen Mold, along with a number of other stations across the county including in Kettering, Rushden and Towcester.
Residents ‘equally deserving’ of police service across the county
Cllr Lee Wilkes (Cons, Raunds) said he believed that everyone in the chamber wanted to see more police officers on the street, local police stations, and for crime rates to reduce.
“My only concern with the motion, and the reason for my relatively minor but really very important amendment, is that it just excludes so many residents. They are all equally deserving of the security and peace of mind that a proper police service provides.”
According to the Northamptonshire Police website, there are currently neighbourhood police hubs open in the Corby Cube, Kettering Council building and Wellingborough.
Other councillors agreed, with Cllr Kevin Watt (Cons, Corby Rural) suggesting that singling out the town created an incorrect impression that Corby “is the grand theft auto capital of Northamptonshire”.
Cllr Andy Mercer (Cons, Rushden South) added: “We’ve taken the police away from the people and as a result, long term, you’ll find the trust in police is at its lowest ever recorded level. Going back to neighbourhood policing is the right answer and Danielle Stone’s got the right idea- that’s why I support it for the whole of North Northamptonshire.”
Cllr McGhee accepted the amendment to his party’s motion to include looking at the potential for police hubs across all of North Northants. The chamber overwhelmingly supported the plans, with just one vote against.
The council will now be tasked with writing a letter or setting a meeting with the police chief to communicate their policing demands for the county.
‘Nobody is going to be left out’
Speaking earlier that day, at a county Police Fire and Crime meeting held in Northampton, Commissioner Danielle Stone said she was “shocked” to find out how little policing resource had been left in Corby. She previously stated that the force is ‘urgently’ considering a variety of different options to provide a new base in Corby.
“We are looking at properties for a new hub and we have been for quite a long time,” she explained, “The chief constable is on the same mission as I am to reshape all of that and put people back into neighbourhoods.”
When asked why the focus had been on Corby and not other areas, the PFCC said that nobody would be left out, but that the current allocations were “a question of priorities”.
“We know the crime rate in Corby has gone up, we know Kettering has the highest crime rate in the county so they are obviously going to be priorities- but that doesn’t mean they’re not looking at everywhere else.”
Ms Stone told the panel that her office had a plan for 16 different policing hubs to be introduced across the county to boost visible and neighbourhood policing. She warned that it would “take time” but assured that there was a strategy in place to meet the county’s needs.