The Chair of the Hampshire Police Federation has said it is ‘utter madness’ that the number of dedicated Roads Policing officers in the region is being cut, yet the number of people dying on the roads is increasing.
In the first 3 months of 2018, a total of 25 people were killed on the roads of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. That’s an increase of 14 from the 11 people that died the same period last year.
Across the region the number of Police officers assigned to dedicated Roads Policing duties is being slashed, not more so than here on the Island.
It was in 2015 that Island Echo revealed that plans were being put into place to shelve the RPU team at Shanklin. Sadly, the merger with the Armed Response Unit went ahead and in May last year the Island lost its last 2 RPU officers.
John Apter of Hampshire Police Federation has blamed the cuts to Hampshire Constabulary’s budget for the decline in the number of dedicated officers on the roads.
One of the remaining Roads Policing Officers, who is based on the mainland, has taken to Twitter to say:
“The knock on effect to the RPU Officers is that we are all doing more with less and the FLOs [Family Liaison Officers] are stretched to the limit…. every officer on RPU is feeling the strain”.
Although the number of Armed Response Officers on the Island has increased and they have taken delivery of 2 new vehicles, there is still a reliance on bringing mainland officers and vehicles over to the Island on a regular basis.
It is feared that mainland officers lack the local knowledge and localised intelligence that the former Shanklin-based Roads Policing Unit had built up over the years.
