YOU may have heard recently that Wiltshire Police will be making changes to how resources are going to be deployed from January 2024. This may pose the questions, what are the changes and how will they impact me as a member of the Warminster, Tisbury, Mere and Westbury community?
After consultation and review of how Wiltshire Police was currently serving you, it was decided that we needed a stronger, more visible, and more resilient policing model. This was followed by a large scale ‘target operating model’ review, focusing on how front-line teams were configured and if they were aligned to the recognised demand.
The results of this review showed that there was an opportunity for us to work better if we embraced change. It established that a change would allow us to provide our communities with greater resilience by improving resource levels.
Response officers will now start each shift at a hub station before filtering out to the surrounding stations where they will remain in the community. For you, this means that the response officers covering Warminster, Tisbury, Mere and Westbury will start at Trowbridge and then filter out to each of our towns where they will work within the community using IT allowing for remote working, or from your local police station.
Response teams are also going from five to four which will assist in pooling resources together and improve staffing resilience. Joint briefings at these hub stations will help every officer receive detailed and relevant intelligence and information to shape their shift.
The community investigation teams will take an increased number of prolonged investigations away from response teams, freeing them from paperwork and allowing them to be visible and proactive. This will make a big difference in improving our response capacity and for you, it means you will see us more and be able to engage with us more easily.
The neighbourhood teams will also go through changes to drive improvement in the service we provide. In the New Year, we will deliver and share with you our community commitments, which you will be able to hold us accountable to. If we aren’t actively working towards solving your community issues, you can refer to the commitments and ask why?
Working alongside our chief constable, the police and crime commissioner has also provided funding for two additional neighbourhood engagement vehicles which will enable us to reach our rural communities more frequently. This allows us, the Warminster Policing Team for both response and Neighbourhoods, to better serve you.
As the changes roll into place, there will be opportunity for you to engage with us. You can contact us through our website which also offers you access to a range of services; community messaging; by visiting one of our enquiry offices (check online to see opening times); through the Your Area Neighbourhood Policing site on the main Wiltshire Police website or by calling 101 in a non-emergency.
Acting inspector Gemma Rutter, Warminster, Tisbury, Westbury and Mere Community Policing Team (pictured)
