“Common sense has prevailed”
Welshpool Police Station is to re-open to the public with local politicians claiming “common sense has prevailed”.
Both Glyn Davies, MP, and Assembly Member Russell George said they agreed with comments made by Inspector Matthew Scrace, that closing the desk and replacing it with a mobile unit just yards in Tesco Car Park was ‘ludicrous’.
The pair wrote to the Dyfed Powys Police and Crime Commissioner, Christopher Salmon, requesting that the initial decision be reviewed because the service was ‘inadequate’ and had ‘lost public confidence’. They also pointed out that access to the mobile unit was so poor that it may not even comply with the Disability Discrimination Act.
“The restoration of the front desk service at Welshpool Police Station is a welcome move,” said Mr Davies. “The original decision was flawed, as I simply could not see how opening a very small mobile unit just yards from the building that once housed this service would make any significant cost savings or improve public access to their police force.
“I appreciate that individuals and organisations can make mistakes but it’s how they respond to those issues that’s important and I believe this honest reappraisal will be well received by the local community.”
Mr George said that Dyfed Powys Police still needed to provide more details of how the service would operate.
“At the end of the day people want to speak to a real person, face-to-face to get an issue resolved and at the moment with the current mobile service, some members of the public are being prevented from doing that and that’s not acceptable,” he said.
“What we now need is more information about opening hours, how the force is going to publicise this service to get people to use it and what is going to happen to the mobile unit moving forward. I am meeting the Police and Crime Commissioner next week in Cardiff and I will be raising all these issues with him then.”
In May 2012, MyWelshpool broke the news that the station’s front counter was to close as part of a cost cutting review.
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