Councillor hits out at lack of police presence in Westbury

A Westbury town councillor has voiced frustration at what he described as a lack of police patrols in the town.

At a full council meeting on Monday 1st September, Councillor Matthew Dean said, “We almost never see any police patrolling our town, or any police presence at all.”

Cllr Dean also raised concern about the lack of patrols in the evenings, something he notices regularly while running his pub, The Angel Inn, in the town centre. “We never see the police in the evenings, and I don’t understand how this can be so,” he said.

“My understanding is that the primary purpose of PCSOs especially is to engage with the community and provide a visible police presence. We do not see that in the town centre. They might be elsewhere – for all I know they could be spending all their time in Warminster – but one thing is for sure, they are not on the ground this summer. When the weather is good, they are not on the ground in Westbury.”

Responding to his concerns, PC Rebecca Walsh admitted at the meeting that police visibility in the town had fallen short. She said, “I, on the majority, agree with what you say. We have been struggling a lot with our availability for various reasons, and being visible is our primary job. We want to be there, but for a few reasons we haven’t been able to fulfil that consistently.

“We do recognise that we are performing low on that scale, but there are lots of things planned coming up. My inspector and sergeant have finally got a full team again, so we can improve on anything that’s raised to us like this.”

When asked what level of police presence residents should expect, PC Welsh said it was difficult to give specific figures. “I would expect at least weekly you should see somebody in the area,” she explained. “But we do answer the radio as well, so we may have the intention that the two people are on that day, but they may end up helping a major incident somewhere.

“We are called upon by other departments, regrettably, and we are drawn away from our commitments.”

Pictured: Councillor Matthew Dean