Caerphilly MP Wayne David has launched a campaign to save Bedwas, Caerphilly, Ystrad Mynach and Bargoed police stations from closure.
The four stations in Mr David’s constituency are among 17 in the Gwent area earmarked for closure.
Gwent Police has said the changes will save it £500,000. Due to budget cuts from the UK Government, the force has to find savings of £34 million by 2015.
The stations will remain as bases for police officers but will be closed to visitors wishing to report crimes in person. The changes will see the loss of 19 front desk jobs.
Mr David has launched a public petition which will be taken door-to-door during the forthcoming council election campaign and is online at www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-the-rhymney-valley-police-stations.html.
Mr David said: “I am urging as many people as possible to sign our petition. It is disgraceful that Gwent Police are shutting the doors of our police stations without any consultation with local people.
“We deplore this high-handed approach and we want our Police Stations to be an active part of community policing, not isolated bunkers.
“People have until April 24 to sign our petition. It will then be presented to Gwent Police. As things stand, the police have indicated that they intend to introduce these changes in July 2012. If the ‘voice of the people’ is loud enough, I believe that Gwent Police will have to think again.”
Gwent Police’s Chief Constable Carmel Napier recently wrote to local politicians to explain the force’s decision to close its police stations to the public.
Mrs Napier said in her letter there will be a month-long consultation process, but that she was also firm on her decision to close.
According to the Chief Constable she is `firm` in her resolve to close these police stations, but, she is willing to consult the elected Councillors and MPs.
Rather a nebulous exercise by any measure. But, whats new in this attitude to meaningful consultation with the plebs by public servents who hold all the cards.
This woman is a law to herself. She accepts advice from nobody. She is an autocratic leader. She will listen to nobody. She is not from the valley's of south wales and has no affinity with its people. These police stations have been here (in some cases the actual buildings) for well over a century. They may not be visited as often as they once were but every community needs a police station. We don't have true community policing now. What we have on every day of the year are "hubs". there is no patrolling there is just a response. The local community police are mainly not real officer's but PCSO's who have basically no powers. I have seen them being verbally abused by youths and then just walking away because they can do nothing. The local policing teams are just not enough. We need to return to the system where all officers covering an area, worked from a police station in that area. When I worked in this area, I knew all the local criminals and I knew very many local good citizens, not through pathetic "surgeries" at community centres, but by patrolling the streets both on foot and by car. Those who broke the law certainly knew who I was as they knew my colleagues who worked regularly in this area. Now the vast majority of officers just get a call, drive at breakneck speed from Blackwood then back straight after. They don't know any of the local criminals like they need to. If you don't believe me, just sit in Maesycwmmer on any day and watch the number of cars driving back and fore to Blackwood! The closure of the Police stations is the final nail in the coffin of true community based policing and this Chief Constable doesn't give a damn. All she cares about is her pathetic attempts to balance the budget. You can blame all Governments for reducing funding but don't let this woman hoodwink anyone into believing anything but this – She is the one who removed local officers working in community based Police stations and she is the one who after more than 100 years, will be the one who shuts these stations for ever. That will be her legacy but I can tell you now – In a few years she will be gone, and she will not give a damn!
If the Rhymney Valley and Islwyn areas are stripped of their police stations it will indeed be a dark day for policing in South Wales. Where will people turn in the event of reporting crime, or seeking the prescence of an officer on the beat? Many of the residents I speak to are worried enough as it is about the lack of a visible police prescence on their streets. I recently spoke with a young couple in Caerphilly who witnessed a mass drunken brawl outside their house late one evening, bottles were thrown and for the young couple who waited anxiously in their home wondering if a bottle or brick was to come smashing through their window it was a frightening experience. There weren't enough police on hand to break up the fight either. I have also spoken with residents whose lives are blighted by anti social behaviour, graffiti, speeding cars and late night disturbances, and sometimes the police response is poor indeed. This is not the fault of the police officers on the ground, the ones I have spoken with say that they simply cannot response to all calls because they don't have the time, or there are not enough police around to deal with these matters. The officers I have spoken with are simply stretched too far, and this is as things stand at the moment.
When these cuts are implemented into policing budgets I fear things can only get worse. As any police officer, teacher or doctor will tell you, you simply cannot do "more with less". The fault for this dreadful state of affairs doesn't lie with the police, not even with Mrs Napier, she is trying to balance the books of a meagre budget allocated to her by the real villians of the piece, this despicable, elitist, incompetent and brutal Conservative government and their partners in crime, the Liberal Cuttingcrats. Once again we see a government slashing and burning public spending, cutting services which ordinary people depend on,ensuring that some people can't sleep soundly in their beds at night. In the meantime the Conservative's rich friend spend their additional £42,000 a year tax cut on security systems in their agreeable country homes, and do sleep soundly at night as police struggle to contain problems in nearby communities which don't have that sort of money.
This is the reality of the situation. If you want decent public services you have to increase investment not cut it. Employ more police, not reduce numbers. The consequences of this disasterous policy will be felt by many for years to come.
Some good points Gareth but you shouldn't politicize it so much. Yes budgets have been reduced but if PCSo's were abolished you could have two "real" officers for every three of "Blunkett's Bobbies". The current Govt. have made cuts but Gwent Police made £11 million of cuts during the last 3 years of the previous Govt. The true problem is what I highlighted about removing officers from the communities they serve. Officer's based in Blackwood and giving what is known as "Fire service" type response policing, do not know the Community they service and policing can only suffer as a result. Believe me as someone who worked for 30 years in this area,it is this current Chief Constable and her predecessor, neither of whom have any links with this area and who are in the Police solely in the interests of furthering their careers, who ARE responsible. It is they who have removed officers from local police stations. They did not have to do this. They chose to give us the current pathetic excuse for policing that now exists.When I worked in Caerphilly, I reported for duty at Caerphilly police station, took statements at Caerphilly , took prisoners to Caerphilly, and when I'd completed those duties could be back on the streets of Caerphilly. The Chief Constable has taken that away by stealth. She is a disgrace and as I said is totally autocratic.Surely saying she will have a consultation process but she won't be changing her mind is proof enough of this? As I said, when she retires, she will leave this area to which she has no affinity, and the wreckage of HER policies, with every Police station closed in the Rhymney Valley, will be a lasting indictment of her failure. We should forget Party Politics and concentrate on fighting the damage that this individual will do and which sadly I cannot ever see being reversed.
David Copperfield's remarks are absolutely correct. Not so long ago a policeman could deal with an arrest at Caerffili and be back on the street afterward. Now police have to drive down from Blackwood and take prisoners to the 'suite' at Ystrad Mynach. A single arrest is now made more expensive, consumes more time from an officer's shift and leaves the sreets unpoliced whilst the officer is engaged in driving around and doing paperwork at cells miles from the town.
In a few short years the quality of policing in Caerffili town has been reduced to a level below that enjoyed by residents in Victorian times, when the population was about 20% of what it is today.
Thank you Richard. You have it exactly right, although it should be noted that for the last 3 years the officers havent even had Caerphilly station as their base. It will only be a matter of time before two things happen. The first is that the length of time for a fast response from Blackwood to let's say the top of Senghenydd or maybe Machen may cost a life and secondly I guarantee someone will be injured at the very least by a speeding Police response car coming from Blackwood. Some of the driving I have seen recently has been very poor. It's a case of on with the blue light on and to hell with anyone who gets in the way.Going from South Wales Police to Gwent has been the worse single event to happen to this area in Policing terms. They promised the earth, built new stations at lansbury park, New Tredegar, Rhymney etc and totally refurbished Bedwas and within 16 years will now shut them all to the public. And nobody should believe the rubbish about officers still working from them. there maybe one or two so called local policing team officers there consisting mainly of PCSO's who offer nothing that the public actually want. We shouldn't allow them to pull the wool over our eyes – the "real" police officers and as importantly the CID will not be based locally. How can you have detectives without local knowledge of the criminals on their patch? And let's state one absolute fact: THERE IS NOT ONE SINGLE POLICE OFFICER BASED ANYWHERE IN THE RHYMNEY VALLEY AFTER 1AM OR PSSIBLY 2AM ON A WEEKEND. That is shocking. They all work from Blackwood – And let the autocratic Chioef Constable deny that fact! Unfortunately local councillors, MP's, AM's etc etc have in many ways allowed this to happen because despite talking a good game, the truth is they don't know how policing really works and theyve not made a stand against the true erosion of local policing by locally based officers. I fear it's now to late as even if they keep the stations, nothing will be done about the centralisation and removal of local officers that has already occurred.
The comment by David Copperfield in the last paragraph of his posting is absolutely correct – unfortunatly for us, the plebs, it is now pay back time for all the sycophantic support and back scratching these public representatives and senior Police Officers have performed for each other over the last ten years or so, since the police force in Gwent became politisised, and as a result local and national politicians have no real grounds, or, the independent strength, to upset each other.- Common Purpose.
Well said Mr Copperfield. I've found everything you have written here very informative indeed, and we need more strong voices like yours. Carry on speaking out Sir.