Police to be more accessible in Tiverton and Newton Abbot

Front desks to open to public

Two Devon four Cornwall police stations will open their front desks to the public, if the police and crime commissioner gets her budget approved on Friday.

Conservative Alison Hernandez is promising a “relentless focus” on community priorities as she announced that people in Newton Abbot, Tiverton, Penzance, Truro, Bude and Falmouth will have greater access to the police in person.

Police stations in the region were cut and officer numbers reduced during the austerity years of David Cameron from 2010 onwards, when Ms Hernandez's predecessor Tony Hogg, also a Conservative, was faced with reduced income.

Now Alison Hernandez wants to spend £384 million on everyday costs in the next financial year. She says it means the number of officers will stay the same as her budget plan, and is the highest since records began, with 3,610 posts, and 23 front-desks open across the region.

The commissioner wants to increase the policing element of council tax (the precept) by six per cent (£15 on a band D property) in the new financial year, beginning in April.

It also details a proposed £3.2 million spend on services for people affected by crime, on projects ranging from high quality support for victims of sexual assault to the Keyham community affected by the shootings in August 2021.

In recent surveys of residents of the force area 70 per cent of respondents either supported or strongly supported further investment in front desks and 65 per cent said they would use these facilities to pass information on what was happening in their communities to policing teams.

The commissioner said: “The chief constable and I are committed to a model of neighbourhood policing that people tell me they want to see. That means officers having the time to build relationships with the people they serve, understanding the communities they work within and dealing with problems at root cause, before situations escalate.

“I support a relentless focus on a model of policing which started here in Devon and Cornwall and which has served us well, with the force consistently achieving among the lowest recorded crime statistics in England and Wales."