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Save our Stations: Ten police stations to be axed
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Really not sure what to think about this.
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People should be able to walk into a police station and speak to a police officer.
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Perhaps, though in these days of telephones I wonder.
Though in these days of call centres...
Why bother going to the police station when you could just stop a bobbie on his beat?
Oh ....nevermind!
Don't normally read the Record, but here's a list of the proposed closures across Scotland:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/police-station-closures-find-out-2330039
I was phoned the other day by the police, wanting detailed descriptions of items which were in my bag when it got stolen. Back in March...
Seriously?
Headline writers(') dream
I'm fairly agnostic on this.
Of course, this is a money saving scheme, offices are expensive to run, especially when staffed by highly paid (relatively speaking), and trained Police Officers.
That resource would clearly be better used on the street, responding to issues. The issue is of course how do you resource, or replace (if needed) the services provided by the station? And if all that resource *needs to be is counter/phone staff, then it probably does make far more sense to have that done centrally, and more cost effectively. Of course you CAN'T replace the 'touchy feely' nice sense of having the service at the end of your street, which is I'm sure what people object most to.
*I'm sure they have done the appropriate analysis.
If I were a jumping-to-conclusions sort of a person, I'd point out that the cuts would appear to fall dispropotionately outside the former Strathclyde territory.
Perhaps the other former territories had a policing model that did not fit with the Strathclyde idea.
"especially when staffed by highly paid (relatively speaking), and trained Police Officers."
Except that there have been suggestions that 'front counter staff' are civilians.
Which isn't my experience on occasional visits to three Edinburgh stations.
In fact there has been no-one there and a long wait was endured more than once...!
"Perhaps the other former territories had a policing model that did not fit with the Strathclyde idea."
Perhaps the Strathclyde model has shown it's self to be more cost efficient, provide a better service, and be better value for public money than other models?
Or maybe when you are 'merged' with the bigger organisation it is just easier (forcibly or not) for the smaller organisations to assimilate into the bigger org. I've been through one of these in education, the bigger player just takes over, whether the functions are better or not.
Looking at the Daily Record list I see Burntisland is closing. There will likely be local outrage at that. Again, so long as the same functions, and local policing are carried out I'm agnostic as to whether there is an occupied building or not.
Historically, Strathclyde had more police officers deployed on the streets and anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that some of these resources are now being deployed in the other former areas. Not sure how this impacts counters.
Doing a few end-of-day sums, based on the former Police forces.
Strathclyde, 115 stations down to 90, or a 22% drop, from 0.52 stations per 10,000 residents to 0.4. Officer levels 36.4 per 10,000 residents.
Lothian & Borders, 51 stations down to 36.4, or a 29% drop, from 0.54 stations per 10,000 residents to 0.38. Officer levels 30.6 per 10,000 residents.
Fife, 16 stations down to 10, or a 27% drop from 0.6 stations per 10,000 residents to 0.44. Officer levels 28.1 per 10,000 residents.
So the reductions are larger as a proportion of all stations in Fife and Lothian & Borders and change Strathclyde to having a slightly higher ratio of stations per unit population from slightly lower.
I think it's fair to compare the two areas as both include large cities, large urban areas and large rural hinterlands. Although Strathclyde includes some more remote parts of the west coast where population and policing densities probably fairly low.
Historically Strathclyde may have had more "bobbies on the beat" because they just had more bobbies per capita to put on the beat.
Strathclyde in terms of Geography alone, is bigger than all of the other services. It would be interesting to see what the ratios between urban, and rural areas are in the different areas. You would begin to see a fuller picture, I think Strathclyde is distorted by the sheer geographical area it covers.
Edit: You also need to account for crime rates when doing comparisons, some places *need* higher numbers of officers on the streets.
Oxgangs is on the list. I remember going there to try and hand in a GPS I had found.
First visit was in the evening - closed; went back the next evening, but earlier - closed; went back on Saturday during the day - closed.
I still have the GPS.
Most criminals in Scotland who get sent to prison are from west. I have been in all Scottish prisons except the new one at addiewell and private one at Kilmarnock. Regardless of location - Newton Stewart to Inverness, 50 % or more of the cons will be from west of Scotland. Makes sense to have more polis through that way. Of course police Scotland is now largely Strathclyde polis with some satellites.
50 % or more of the cons will be from west of Scotland.
Given that 50% or more of Scotland's population live within the former Strathclyde region, this is hardly surprising.
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Among the buildings which could be shut and sold off is the iconic Leith police station in Queen Charlotte Street, which was built as Leith Town Hall in 1827.
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