Changes to Local Policing Announced

West Mercia Police recently announced a change to the delivery of local policing services which formally came into force on 30 September 2013. Their full announcement can be found here.
Locally, the Market Drayton Rural South team no longer exists, the different teams in the Market Drayton area having been merged into the Market Drayton Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT). This covers the whole of the Market Drayton area, including Hodnet. Details of the team, a map of the area covered and contact information can be found on this page on the West Mercia Police website. We have also updated the contact information in our Local Services section.
In a separate announcement West Mercia Police have said that police officers are now equipped with mobile tablet computers as part of a drive to increase the visibility of police officers and reduce the need for them to return to the office. With this new technology, officers will be able to remotely perform Police National Computer (PNC) checks, check photographs, access mapping information and receive incident reports. The announcement stated:

TETRATABs have been in use by a number of Warwickshire police officers since 2011 and were recently trialled in West Mercia.
They have already demonstrated their value to frontline policing. On one occasion officers searching for a suspect in a baby snatch were able to react immediately having been sent an image of the suspect. On another occasion, following a tip off that a wanted man was in a pub, officers were able to view his image on a mobile device before entering the pub and arresting him quickly and efficiently.
Online maps have been used to identify and coordinate search activity in relation to vulnerable missing people, and officers are able to update systems and submit reports remotely – again removing the need to return the station to complete paperwork.

Three new mobile police stations have been introduced in West Mercia, and all safer neighbourhood teams have been issued with Blackberry devices to enable them to access and update local social media accounts on the go. Gareth Morgan, Assistant Chief Constable and Lead for Local Policing, said:

The overriding aim of our new policing model is to keep officers out of the office and make them more accessible and available to the communities they serve.
Given the large geographical areas that we cover, providing mobile data terminals means that our officers can access the information that they need, allowing them to work more effectively and efficiently. These devices will help to keep police officers where the public want them.

A TETRATAB in use within a parked patrol car