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Ian Shires
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Government childcare announcement: More Conservative chaos hurting families
The case for a radical, liberal left
Blue light bill bombshell as emergency services face £144m fuel and insurance costs
Police – closures and cutbacks
by Ian Shires on 19 November, 2014
A big spread in Wednesday’s Express and Star about the proposals from Labour’s West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PPC) to shut 27 front desks at Police Stations across the Black Country whilst at the same time cutting the opening hours of the ones which remain open.
What that means for the people of Walsall is that Walsall Police Station front desk will close as will those at Willenhall and Aldridge.
It has already been announced that Walsall and Willenhall Police Stations are to close under efficiency savings announced earlier this year by Labour’s Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands.
These decisions are being made on the back of a year long review with local communities. Changing habits they say now mean that fewer people use the front desk to communicate with the police. More are favouring mobile phones, Twitter and Facebook as a means of communication.
Yes they’ll tell you there has been consultation. If you can call 7,000 interviews out of the total population of the Black Country consultation, and who were those 7,000? Were you one of them?
Some of the reasoning probably makes some sense but the lack of proper public debate leads to discontent and frustration. Decisions are made at a West Midlands level by the Police Crime Commissioner and his team. Too far away from those that are directly affected. There has to be a better way to give people the facts. Help them make informed choices. People aren’t stupid. They can recognise a reasoned argument if they are given the facts.
It’s not much use Walsall North’s Labour MP David Winnick writing in now. The decision’s been made. The PCC is his man, he’s Labour as well. He should have influenced his man sooner.
Potentially the closures are more of an issue to crime fighting. Certainly the closure of Willenhall Police Station and the move to Darlaston puts valuable time on getting to issues in Willenhall town centre, Short Heath or New Invention. Willenhall’s Liberal Democrat Focus Team are working hard to help find the Police a base on The Square, Lichfield Road.
2 Comments
The PCC may be Labour but the main part of the budget comes from Westminster – who also introduced PCC’s as a wasteful adjunct at a time when austerity appears to the rage. You are correct in that Winnick has missed the boat – but the fuel for the boat is prepared by one Danny Alexander – chief stoker to Gideon George Osbourne. This is a mess of all three parties and, thanks to them, we have the rise of the borderline racist UKIP (no, after what was said on Tuesday we can remove the word borderline)
The point I am making in this post is that the decision making process does not allow people to make well informed decisions. The position of the PCC is much the same as that of an elected Mayor in that power is put into the hands of one person. There is no way that that one person can communicate properly with everyone in the Black Country hence the feeling that most people have of not being involved in the process. The Cabinet system is not that much better. It’s no secret I’m not a fan of any of these no matter who has introduced them be in Labour, the Tories or ourselves. For democracy to work properly people need to feel that they can influence the outcome. The whole process has to be seen to be inclusive and transparent for it to mean anything. I must say I agree entirely with your views on UKIP, they are no more than the BNP in suits….