Policing to take six-month 'hit' - senior officer

Neighbourhood policing in Lincolnshire will take "a hit" for six months due to financial and staffing pressures, a senior officer has warned.

South Holland Inspector Matt Dickinson told a meeting that Lincolnshire Police was running a trial which would see some officers redeployed from neighbourhood, rural and roads teams to answer 999 calls and investigate serious crimes.

Members of Spalding Town Forum were told the move would make it more difficult to tackle some neighbourhood policing activities, such as inconsiderate cycling in Spalding town centre - an issue on the councillors' agenda.

Dickinson said the trial would "impact what we can do in terms of our enforcement activities".

At a meeting on Wednesday, Dickinson said: "We will, by the end of January, lose three community beat managers and one sergeant to bolster the front line.

"So, for six months, I will be down four police officers and I'm already down two Police Community Support Officers," he said.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Dickinson told the meeting he was hopeful the officers would return to the neighbourhood policing team in South Holland at the end of the trial.

He also said the force was recruiting Police Community Support Officers across the organisation to get their numbers back up to 50.

"I'm hopeful that through that recruitment process, I'll get an additional two", he said.

However, Dickinson warned the next six months would be "quite difficult".

James Le Sage, Independent councillor for Spalding St John's Ward, said he understood the financial pressures, but would like to see the police do more to tackle anti-social cycling in Spalding town centre.

"I see school kids winging it down the high street, bouncing off the curbs, paying no regard whatsoever to the pedestrians in our nicely pedestrianised area that we now have," he said.

Le Sage urged the force to have more neighbourhood police officers on patrol in the town centre to address his concerns about this "inappropriate behaviour".

Responding, Dickinson said the policing team in South Holland was examining its "wider resources" within the force to see if those could be used to provide more education and enforcement.

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