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We are making a series of changes over the coming months to improve the visibility, consistency and resilience of our local policing services within Wiltshire. Since joining Wiltshire Police in February 2023, Chief Constable Catherine Roper has received consistent feedback from local communities and teams within the Force of a need to provide a stronger focus on visible neighbourhood policing. Based on this feedback and in order to make best use of our resources and provide a more consistent service across the county, we are evolving our local policing approach. These changes, which will take place in January 2024, will include; Our Response Teams working a new shift pattern that will ensure we have better alignment of our resources to our demand.- By grouping our Response Teams together around where they start and end their shifts - in four hubs instead of five – we are strengthening their communications and ability to respond to demand. The teams will continue to provide a highly visible presence in their existing geographical areas through patrol activity and response to crimes and incidents. Emphasis will be focused on ensuring that our response times will not increase, and the number of police stations the public can access is not changing
- The changes within our Response Teams are the result of extensive engagement with our officers since July 2023 whereby we sought their views on a number of shift pattern options with the aim of ensuring we can better match our resource levels to our demand and improve the wellbeing of officers. We have also been working with members of our communities and seeking their views through a dedicated Independent Advisory Group.
Our Neighbourhood Policing Teams will continue to work from their existing stations and we are putting more resources into these teams. This will enable our Neighbourhood Policing Team officers and staff to spend more time out in our communities and working with them to solve community issuesWe are introducing a set of Community Commitments – clearly outlining what engagement our communities can expect to receive from our Neighbourhood Policing Teams. This will improve the consistency of service we provide and allows communities to hold us accountable for the service they receive from usWe are also adding two additional neighbourhood engagement vehicles to our fleet (taking our total number of neighbourhood engagement vehicles up to four). These have been funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire and Swindon and will be used by our Neighbourhood Policing Teams to improve our visibility and engagement across our communities (particularly in rural areas).Chief Constable Catherine Roper said: “I am really excited by the opportunities these changes present to fundamentally improve the local policing service we provide to our communities, achieve greater consistency in the way we deliver neighbourhood policing and create a stronger, more visible and more resilient local policing model. “Since joining Wiltshire Police earlier this year the feedback I have received in my engagement with our communities and our operational teams is that they want to see much more emphasis on providing visible, neighbourhood-focused policing. These changes will be instrumental in delivering on our commitment to put our communities at the heart of everything we do. “By creating a new shift pattern for our Response Teams and increasing the resourcing levels in our Neighbourhood Policing Teams, I truly believe we will be enhancing the service our communities will receive. “We will be able to put more officers out on the beat and this increased visibility will be supported by doubling the number of neighbourhood engagement vehicles in our fleet. Having four of these vehicles available will help enhance our reach across communities and in particular will ensure our rural communities have an increased policing presence and more opportunities to engage with us. “In addition to the resourcing changes, we are also launching our Community Commitments – this will be a contract between us and the public, outlining what engagement they can expect from the Neighbourhood Policing Teams. “This commitment will ensure greater consistency in the level of service provided across the entire county and allows for the public to hold us to account for the level of service they are receiving in their local communities. “We will look to introduce more ways that the public can interact with us, including our website via the Your Area section where communities can report their concerns, request a visit to their community events and report crimes, road traffic incidents and antisocial behaviour. “In addition to this, you can sign up for our two-way Community Messaging platform, contact us via our online social presence on Facebook, Linked In, Instagram or X, visiting one of our front counters, as well as calling 101 for non-emergencies and 999 in an emergency situation.” “I’m looking forward to seeing these changes come to fruition as I truly believe they will make a real difference to our communities.”
Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Wilkinson said: “Delivering a police service which meets the needs of its communities has never been more important. “With public trust and confidence in policing being questioned nationally we should be doing all we can locally to ensure our residents are getting what they need – and deserve – from their police service. “The changes will mean increased visibility, greater access to neighbourhood officers– especially in more rural areas – alongside police officers who are better equipped and structured so they can respond to the public more efficiently. I believe this shows a Force determined to do all they can on the ground to improve policing for our communities and will directly deliver Priority One of my police and crime plan. “This priority was influenced by you, the public, and will contribute to Making Wiltshire Safer in the short, and long, term. Both the Chief Constable and I are committed to ensuring that not only will communities be safer but they will start to feel safer too." | 
