COUNTY councillors have blasted a move by West Mercia Police to relocate officers from Hereford to Worcestershire.

Councillor Alan Seldon criticised the force and police and crime commissioner John-Paul Campion while discussing the youth justice plan last week at Herefordshire Council’s children and young people scrutiny committee.

He said up to 10 officers have been relocated out of the county and said cuts to the police mean his local constable and community support officer have to cover a geographical area larger than the whole metropolitan borough of Sandwell near Birmingham.

“We are being told that the figures are looking quite rosy and are reducing,” he said.

“I can’t emphasize enough the impact that youth crime has on our communities.

“It’s horrible, low level stuff. But when it’s not being challenged by any kind of authority, whatsoever, we have a problem brewing in our communities, especially here in Herefordshire.

“The massaging of statistics is a classic game. I’m sure our colleague in the police and crime commissioner’s office is using your statistics to justify the withdrawal of resources from Herefordshire.

“That has already happened. I know that officers have been withdrawn from Hereford city and placed in outlying population areas.

“Politically, that is a good thing to do from his point of view, because that’s where the votes are, up in the metropolitan areas.

“For us up here in Herefordshire it isn’t so good and it is not so good for the young people we are supposed to be serving either.”

Councillor Jon Johnson said petty crime was increasing but it disappears from a community if the police are brought in.

“It gets pushed somewhere else and as soon as that police intervention seems to have worked and the crime has stopped their efforts go somewhere else,” he said.

“Low and behold, 12 months later we are back in that cycle. You’ve got the police looking in your area again.

“You go out to my public today and say the trends of crime are going down around Herefordshire and they will laugh in your face, because that isn’t their experience."

Superintendent Sue Thomas said a new policing model was introduced in April 2018 which reviewed where officers are deployed and what functions they undertake balanced against demand.

She said: “An incident progression team was created to reduce the demands for our staff, taking administration tasks away from them to focus on priority crimes and support the management of 999 calls."

"We are currently in the process of placing six officers into the local policing priorities team which is part of a wider team across Herefordshire and Worcestershire to address local neighbourhood and problem-solving issues as well as matters of serious organised crime. This is an extra resource to support our existing local teams."

“We will soon be welcoming transferees into the county and will benefit from a number of new Student Officers following their recruitment and training early in the New Year following the PCC commitment to recruit officers."

Police and Crime Commissioner John Campion said it was disappointing to hear these ‘misplaced’ comments from elected councillors, which are without context.

“I have made a commitment to keeping Herefordshire’s communities safe and have delivered on this promise, by protecting the frontline, bolstering police numbers and giving officers the tools to serve our communities more effectively,” he said.

“The specific deployment of police officers and use of resources is an operational matter for the chief constable, but I am confident in his approach which is supported by continued low crime figures in the county.”