Mike Pannett: Cuts have grounded police helicopters

Many officers had reservations that they wouldn’t see the helicopters nearly as much – especially those in forces further away from the bright lights and big cities. But they were assured that the vast majority of areas could have a helicopter where they needed one within 20 minutes for a “priority” call – which normally involves fleeing criminals or a missing child or vulnerable person.

Now efficiency savings are being implemented to the tune of 37 per cent. The reality is that bases are to be closed and helicopters will be lost.

The closure of bases at Humberside Airport and Tees Valley means, incredibly, that the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside will be covered by just one helicopter based at Wakefield. Not only does this mean that most of Yorkshire lies outside of the 20-minute response time, in fact the Yorkshire coast, Moors, Dales and Wolds are actually out of operational fuel range.

Helicopters only have a short flying duration, so a 50-minute flight to Whitby wouldn’t even have enough fuel to get back to Wakefield. Bear in mind flight time estimates also assume that the helicopter is on the ground fuelled and ready to fly. The reality is that the Wakefield helicopter will likely be already flying over Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield or Sheffield in response to another incident.

NPAS have defended their position by saying they will introduce a small number of fixed wing aeroplanes. However as these are based at regional airports, their emergency response times are appalling and planes are universally held in disregard by police aviation because of their restricted ability to maintain visual contact from the air with fleeing criminals in tight urban streets and alleyways.

Julia Mulligan, the North Yorkshire Police Crime Commissioner, already pays for one of the smallest amounts of police helicopter time in the whole country, a tiny 110 hours per year – which equates to just two hours a week to catch criminals and search for vulnerable people. This is in contrast to the forces in South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire which pay for 1,200 hours a year of police helicopter support. In North Yorkshire financial considerations already seem to be taking precedence over operational police air support.

It’s a fact that criminals target our towns and villages because they know the police are already thin on the ground in rural areas. We suffer at the hands of organised gangs who travel here from the North West, North East and the Midlands. For crimes such as burglary and car theft it could become open season in Yorkshire. The fears of police officers have come home to roost.

Massive coalition cuts to policing have already hit the number of police officers on the front line. Just ask any rural community when they last saw a police officer. Now, front line air support is set to become all but extinct. No air support for the thin blue line on the ground inevitably means easy getaways for thieves and terrible consequences when it comes to searching for missing and vulnerable people when time is of the essence.

It is important that we grasp the implications of this. We need to be asking our MPs and police and crime commissioners why they are allowing this to slip by unchallenged.

The brave men and women who operate NPAS cover so many front line duties – pursuit safety, suspect containment, assisting 999 services, moving resources (including armed officers), finding missing persons, intelligence gathering and public order duty and demonstrations to name a few vital roles. The value of our police helicopters is immeasurable.

One last fact. Prior to 2012 we had 30 police air bases in England and Wales. Each of these made a strong argument to be kept in place. Following the latest round of cuts we will have 15.

There are 13 police forces across the North of England which share four police helicopters to cover 14 million people and a staggering 27,000 square miles. Yet there are four police helicopters in London alone. I shall leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Mike Pannett is an author and former North Yorkshire police officer.