THE closure of Launceston’s custody centre has caused ‘a complete change’ to local officers’ ‘way of policing’, meaning they have to adapt.

That was the message from the town’s neighbourhood beat manager PC Steve Stoppard, to town councillors at their meeting last week.

PC Stoppard had been asked to attend the meeting in relation to the recent news that Launceston police station is scheduled to close in 2019/2020. He said: “The building itself is what will close but police in Launceston will remain, but in a different venue and location.”

He said Launceston, as the gateway to Cornwall, was ‘too strategically placed for us not to have a police station’.

Launceston’s custody centre closed in October. PC Stoppard said: “We are utilising Newquay and Charles Cross at the moment. Prisoners from Callington or Launceston are going to Charles Cross and we are taking prisoners to Newquay from Bude and Camelford.

“Colleagues down at Newquay have helped us a few times with interviews, to free us up.

“It’s a complete change to our way of policing and we are having to adapt to that.”

On neighbourhood policing, he said: “It is still in the balance and I imagine it will depend on cuts whether we will still provide a neighbourhood police team or not.

“My view is we need one otherwise we don’t have the close contact and network we have built up. The amount of work I have done by being aided by the public and various organisations has been phenomenal and I don’t know where we would go if we didn’t have it.”

Cllr John Harris said he knew ‘police will always be there’, but said he was worried about how the ‘daily grind of law and order’ might be affected: “How will the cutbacks over the next three to four years actually affect law and order, the daily grind, in our communities? Will it just be a responsive outfit, or is there going to be more investment in Neighbourhood Watch? Is there going to be a cut-off level where a crime is thought not to be serious enough to come out to?”

PC Stoppard said there is a review in place at the moment, which covers neighbourhood policing, PCSOs and intelligence services. He added: “That will be answered, but will depend on budget.

“We have got to move with the times. We have got so many things to investigate now — online crime, cyber crime — everything is changing.

“I imagine we will have to say we can’t investigate certain things.”

PC Stoppard added that he felt in his time as a police officer, the police ‘have been doing things they should never have done in the first place, because other agencies should have done it’.

“People expect us to carry on doing it and people say who is going to do it now? The times of us going out to a noise complaint aren’t there anymore — now it is Environmental Health.”

Cllr John Conway asked if town councils would be given the opportunity to fund their own police: “But if we are going to do that we can’t pay for other things.”

Cllr Jane Nancarrow asked PC Stoppard how members of the public could get in touch with him. He said they can use the Devon and Cornwall Police website to find the contact details for their local neighbourhood team; call 101 and ask for him directly, and leave a contact number the force enquiry centre can pass on to him, and he said he is more than happy to receive letters. He said he would protect people’s confidentiality if they passed on sensitive information.

Cllr Paul O’Brien expressed his gratitude to PC Stoppard, adding: “Whatever your job ends up as over the next few years we wish you well.”

Deputy mayor Cllr Margaret Young said the respect PC Stoppard has from young people in the town ‘is very good’ and thanked him for that.