Police will be more visible on the streets of the North East, a force’s new chief constable has promised.
After taking the helm at Northumbria Police earlier this month, Vanessa Jardine has pledged a “very deliberate” region-wide operation starting in June that aimed at making both her and officers a stronger presence in the communities they are tasked with protecting. Ch Cons Jardine told journalists on Thursday that the project would see officers out making arrests, carrying out warrants and also speaking to locals about issues in their area.
The chief’s vow comes after it was revealed that more than 100,000 anti-social behaviour (ASB) reports across Northumberland and Tyne and Wear did not result in a police officer visiting the scene between 2019 and 2022 – with the percentage of reports attended dropping from 60% to 45% in that time.
Read More: Northumbria Police fails to attend over 100,000 anti-social behaviour reports in four years
Asked whether she would seek to reverse that trend, Ch Cons Jardine said: “We need to make sure we are attending the right incidents at the right time. We have seen increases in demand across a wide range of incidents. But I know how impactive ASB can be on a community and we need to make sure we are responding in the right way.”
She added: “One of the things policing should do is address anti-social behaviour. Local authorities have a lot of responsibility around ASB as well if you talk about noise nuisance, for example, or fly-tipping which does affect communities.
“I need to make sure that we are responding to the incidents that we can make a difference for. If we do that properly and effectively then we will be able to respond to more incidents.”
In 2019, Northumbria Police sent officers to 28,113 out of 46,762 anti-social behaviour incidents – compared to 18,765 out of 42,044 in 2022. Across the 38 police forces in England and Wales who responded to freedom of information requests from the Liberal Democrats, an average of 63% of anti-social behaviour reports did not result in an officer physically attending.
In Northumbria, a total of 103,516 went unattended from 2019 to 2022.
Ch Cons Jardine, who left West Midlands Police to succeed Winton Keenen in Northumbria’s top post, also called on Thursday for the force to be “more creative” with its policing of rural areas to ensure locals feel safe – even if they have seen their police station shut down. While Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness has pledged to put 134 extra officers into neighbourhood policing teams, budget cuts mean that the force is also set to axe 136 Police Community Support Officer posts.
Discussing how the force’s remaining 60 PCSOs would be deployed, Ch Cons Jardine said: “It is my job to make sure the right people are in the right places and we will look at that. I am not going to say there is one area that deserves more than others because they don’t, everybody deserves to have an effective police force that is working for them.
“But I am having a look at the new neighbourhood model, as you would expect me to coming in, and I am going to review what it is trying to do and wants to achieve to make sure that it is the best it can possibly be.”
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