Yorkshire 999 fears as police centre faces axe

North Yorkshire Police, which covers the largest area of any force in England, is considering the closure of its northern control room at Newby Wiske with the loss of up to 100 jobs.

Closing one of the force's two control rooms is likely to form the centrepiece of efforts to slash around 350 police civilian jobs, equating to a 25 per cent cut in non-frontline manpower.

Under the proposal, services would instead focus on the remaining control room in York, prompting fears it might not be able to cope with the volume of calls and may even have technical difficulties communicating with officers in the north of the county.

A senior union official also warned that the overall scale of cuts would inevitably mean policing would suffer.

The latest development comes days after it emerged Yorkshire's four police services are having to make almost 200m cuts over the next four years, in line with Government spending curbs.

North Yorkshire's share is 19m, and up to 200 police officers are also due to leave the force, largely through retirement.

Closure of the Newby Wiske control room is one of the options being put before staff union Unison as part of the ongoing consultation process on job cuts. Closing the York facility is also an option but it is understood that Newby Wiske is the more likely to go.

Around 250 staff are currently based in the two control rooms. Last year, the force handled 75,382 emergency 999 calls and 464,234 non-emergency calls.

Unison branch secretary John Mackfall said cuts were being implemented too harshly and too quickly. He said: "In our view, it's quite clear: if you cut police staff posts, business suffers because someone else has to do that work. If it's a police officer, it detracts from some of the jobs they were supposed to be doing on the street."

Mr Mackfall challenged the notion that cutting backroom staff would not hit police effectiveness: "These are massive cuts and there's a knock-on effect. We don't employ any staff that are not in an essential role to policing.

"If you cut vital roles - including fingerprint experts, scenes of crime experts - in any way, the service overall is reduced."

He also raised concerns about the proposed closure of a control room which only opened as purpose-built facility a decade ago.

He said: "It's essential that the public gets answered quickly and efficiently. We are concerned that won't be the case in the future. If there are less people providing the service, how is it going to be the same service?

"There's no justification for changing the control rooms as they work perfectly well. It's purely a cost-saving exercise, nothing else."

Assistant Chief Constable Tim Madgwick said: "The issue of control room provision is currently being assessed and consulted on within the force.

"The options that are being explored include retaining the current two control room sites at Newby Wiske and York, or removing one of the two sites.

"As North Yorkshire Police operates a ‘virtual' control room, this means there is an in-built flexibility to reorganise the way it functions and where it can function.

"While the consultation process is ongoing it would not be appropriate to go into any more detail at this stage, other than to say that any decision will be based on maximising efficiency while continuing to provide a high-level of service to the public."

Comment: Page 12.

Rob Waugh

tim madgwick: Issue of control room provision is currently being assessed and consulted upon.