An update from Councillor Geoff Smith following his letter to the Police and Crime Commissioner last month.
Following the Crosspool Forum meeting in July I wrote to the Police and Crime Commissioner, and various Sheffield police commanders about concerns that had been expressed about the future of neighbourhood policing.
I have been contacted by one of those I wrote to, Inspector Deborah Pickering, who is responsible for policing in the south west of Sheffield. She was unable to give me any definite information at this stage but she did make a number of comments.
First she said that South Yorkshire Police is fully committed to neighbourhood policing with local police constables and police and community support officers responsible for a particular area and known in the locality.
Second she referred to the closure of Crewe Flats where our neighbourhood police officers are based at present. She said that because of cuts to the policing budget there was some rationalising of police stations with some closing. She said that it was almost certain that Crewe Flats would close with a likely closure date of early January.
She also said that she was committed to police officers being based within reasonable distances of where they were working but could not at the moment say where police officers for Crookes and Crosspool would be based. She seemed sympathetic to my view that Woodseats would be too far away.
I will be meeting Inspector Pickering in September when I hope to be given some more definite information which I will report.
