Police commissioner faces council's concerns

Brigg is a safe town. That was the message from Humberside Police Commissioner Matthew Grove when he spoke at the Town Council's monthly meeting. He was accompanied by Superintendent Ed Cook.

“I applaud you the elected members for asking me here,” said Mr Grove.

“You have a real sense of community, Brigg is a very safe place to be.”

He recognised Humberside Police Area had ‘bumped along’ the bottom of policing figures for too long.

Following restructuring, councillors had been concerned Brigg Police Station now performed a different function, with its former neighbourhood team no longer based there.

Mr Grove admitted initially there had been problems following the changes, but these had largely since been solved.

“We have now locked police officers and PCSOs into their communities,” he said.

“The response time on the 101 number had dropped to an unacceptable level, but changes mean it is now performing pretty well.”

Superintendent Cook confirmed the local police operating area was Barton, Winterton and Brigg.

Mr Grove criticised the previous working arrangements, which meant the same number of officers were on shift at 7am as at 7pm when there is more crime.

“We are now better able to allocate our resources.

“There is more crime at 7pm, so what we had before could not have been right and we have addressed it.”

“We need a shift system that gets officers on duty when crime is at its highest.”

Coun Mike Campion questioned whether changes in the use of Brigg Police Station had been effective.

“There are more police officers in Brigg than ever before, a lot are plain clothed but they are about,” replied Mr Grove.

Coun Campion claimed a report had spoken about low morale in the local police area, to which Mr Grove replied policing was a tough job with a high profile.

“We knew there were problems with our IT system but we have addressed that.

“The system was out of date but we have invested £1.8million in it, including mobile technology.”