THE police superintendent for North and West Devon paid Holsworthy town councillors a visit on Wednesday, December 6, to talk about issues facing the area.

During the meeting Supt Toby Davies addressed councillors’ concerns regarding CCTV, an increase nationally in crime figures and the proposed cuts to PCSO staff in order to re-disperse them throughout the force to meet demand.

Supt Davies’ talk began with a brief introduction to how he became the superintendent for North and West Devon and the changes he has seen over the years since moving to the area in 1999.

He explained the purpose of his visit was to create a closer connection between the police and local councils, as he believes their local knowledge is key to making communities safer places to live and work.

He said: “When you look at some of our larger, more isolated parishes you come across some issues that are unique to these areas and they are things I would like to address.

“I have been visiting some of the larger rural parishes over the last few weeks, and you [Holsworthy] are part of that tour. It will be beneficial for myself to hear about your local issues so that I and your local police team can work with you to address these problems.”

Supt Davies said that Holsworthy and its surrounding parishes are lucky in the sense that the crime rate for the area is ‘one of the lowest’.

He said: “Where nationally we are seeing increases in crime, your area is still among the safest, with much lower levels of crime per head than anywhere else in the country — it is probably one of the reasons you and your families live here.

“You have an excellent local policing team here in Holsworthy. The police staff we have across Torridge and North Devon really get to know people and the streets they patrol. We are lucky to have so many officers who come from the communities they police; they really are part of the community.”

However, he said there are challenges facing the police force — to meet some of those newer challenges there will be a reduction in the number of PCSOs as staff are deployed to other areas of risk.

He assured councillors that the intention was to make these reductions without any redundancies and as far as possible staff would be moving to other roles within the force.

He said: “This force is top within the country for public confidence and that is a great achievement. There are challenges facing our local police force — as there is across the country — budgets are squeezed at the moment. We have less staff than previous years but despite this local officers, albeit stretched at times, are doing a good job in often challenging circumstances.

“The threats we are dealing with in the modern world have changed. We now have things like cyber-crime, terrorism and modern slavery to combat. In the last few years we have had to make changes in the way we operate to tackle these issues.

“It is important that we maintain a police presence, especially in rural areas, however hard that might be at times and there are no plans to close Holsworthy Police Station.”

Supt Davies said it is important that public confidence in what they do is maintained. He explained that often the work of the local police teams goes unnoticed. Some people may be unaware of the amount of police activity in their area as a lot of cases they handle are ‘behind closed doors’.

He said: “What do you want your local police officers to do? Is it to sort parking issues or dog mess, etc? What many would see as a priority can often be skewed because those may be the visible problems but they are not necessarily the biggest priorities for the town.”

He added: “We want to be able to work alongside you and the community to ensure we are all being as effective in your area as we can.”

The floor was then opened up for questions and town clerk Vanessa Saunders was keen to find out what provisions police had in place for cases involving mental health issues.

She said: “Mental health issues have been causing our local police team trouble. How are police going to deal with it when we are so far away from any support for these people?”

Supt Davies explained that it wasn’t just an issue they were facing in Holsworthy. There are many people in crisis and the police service can often be their ‘first port of call’.

He assured councillors that he was working with colleagues and mental health partners to ensure suitable provision for those in crisis in North Devon and that it was a very challenging and demanding area of business for them at the moment.

Police officers are not always best placed to deal with those affected by mental health and he was keen for those agencies with the right skills and support to get involved.

Councillors then expressed their concern over rising crime figures. In response, Supt Davies explained that there has recently been a review of how crimes are recorded. Although crime rates appear to be increasing, this is due to the more meticulous recording methods now used by the police.

Mayor Jon Hutchings expressed his gratitude for the hard work put in by the local PCSO team, but said as a pub landlord he has had to deal with the police on a regular basis and has not always been impressed by the results.

He said: “I firstly want to say a positive, I think the PCSO team locally do a great job with the resources they have. PCSO Mark and the team do a fantastic job to support us, and Sergeant Dave Monkton has really got stuck in. If we lose that it will be a downgrade for the town.

“I have to call the police on a regular basis in my line of work and the response times are often poor. Holsworthy is a changing place. I have had two incidents in the pub in the last eight weeks and the 999 response was either nothing or slow — for one incident it was 24 hours before a police officer showed up.

“We are quite far away from most places, if people know you aren’t around won’t they think they can get away with it?”

Supt Davies said it is ‘increasingly challenging’ at times for the police force to spread its resources effectively. He said the overall statistics for the Holsworthy area were ‘reasonable’.

The police look to attend an incident within 20 minutes of a call being received and they generally achieve this, but accept it can be more challenging in a rural area at peak times.

He explained that resources are strategically positioned across the area and more resources are positioned during peak times and at key events, but unfortunately the very nature of policing is such that from time to time officers may be pulled to incidents elsewhere in the district, and the role of local supervisors is to work hard to move resources around to meet the 999 calls coming in.

Cllr Hutchings said: “The problem is, I had an incident the other day where I should have called 999 but didn’t bother because I thought ‘what is the point’ and I don’t like that!”

Supt Davies implored members of the council to always contact the police when a situation demands it.

He said that there are hundreds of villages over the LPA and if they were to not report crimes occurring in their areas it would hide evidence from the police and impede them from placing their resources in areas that need it most.

He concluded by assuring the council that he would look into response times for Holsworthy and would continue to see if there was anything more they could do to improve their response times.

As a final point, Supt Davies added: “Overall, I would ask that you keep in contact with us so we can keep helping you.”

The mayor thanked Supt Davies for his informative talk.