KINGSBRIDGE Police sergeant Dave Green has this week warned ‘there is a juggernaut on our way, but we don’t know when or how hard it will hit’.

Sgt Green was talking about the upcoming £54 million in Government cuts to hit Devon and Cornwall Police in the upcoming spending review, expected on November 25. This is in addition to the 25 per cent cut in the last parliament from 2010-2015.

Seven police and crime commissioners, including Devon and Cornwall’s PCC Tony Hogg, are threatening legal action against the Government over its ‘unjustified’ and ‘deeply flawed’ funding reforms.

‘With the uncertainty of the cuts, morale has taken a hit.’ said Sgt Green.

‘Morale I think is holding up better in Kingsbridge than other areas, but of the 20 officers here, 15 live here too. So it is not just our personal futures on the line, but the effects that cuts will have on community policing and therefore on our own families and home community.

‘The morale organisationally is dropping. To be doing a difficult job anyway and then asked to do more, take on more – and all with fewer resources – is hard.

‘The uncertainty is the worst, we know there is a juggernaut on our way, but we don’t know when or how hard it will hit. We hope the turmoil of uncertainty wont turn into the certainty of turmoil. It is inevitable, patrolling officers in Kingsbridge are under threat.’

Sgt Green went on to say that there needed to be a ‘national conversation’ about what society thought the police should be doing.

‘We are entering an era of cybercrime’, Sgt Green continued, ‘and the criminals are ahead of us. The number of crimes such as car thefts and burglaries are falling, but they are being replaced with online crime, and to fight that we need specialist knowledge, not Bobbies on the beat.

‘In my view, there needs to be a conversation about what the UK wants the police to do. For a long time we have been the last resort, society’s safety net, a catch-all service, if you have a problem – bring it to us, but is that sustainable?

‘Do people want us investigate crimes, tackle online fraud, counter-terrorism, safeguard the vulnerable, search for the missing child, keep the person with mental health issues safe etcetera, or do they want us to intervene in neighbourhood disputes between adults who should be able to sort their own problems out maturely?’

Sgt Green said that this needed to be a national debate to prevent a ‘postcode lottery’ of policing, with different forces tackling crime in different ways, but that there needed to be a ‘fundamental rethink’.

The National Funding Formula means Devon and Cornwall Police and other rural forces come out badly, because the formula is based on crime levels.

‘We have low levels of crime’, Sgt Green explained, ‘but it doesn’t take into account our difficult geography. We have the longest coastline in the country and we need to be aware of people trafficking, counter-terrorism and keeping people safe.

‘It also doesn’t take into account our changes seasonally, where in the summer, millions of visitors come to the South West, doubling or tripling populations the South Hams.

‘This means we are doubly disadvantaged by the cuts.’

In order to withdraw from the neighbourhood arguments, noise complaints, boundary disputes and low-level anti-social behaviour jobs that Kingsbridge Police encounter, they work closely with Devon Mediation, referring people to their mediation services in order to solve the problem.

‘If no crime has been committed, we are now telling people that this isn’t a police matter and referring them to other organisations and mediation. We have to slowly wean the community off an over-reliance on the police force.’

Police officers are sworn crown servants and cannot be made redundant, but the A19 regulations have been used to force officers with 30 years experience to retire. The Police Federation has legally challenged this, with the London Central Employment Tribunal ruling in February 2014, that 250 officers who were made to retire under A19 had suffered age discrimination.

PCSOs, Police Community Support Officers, on the other hand are contracted as civilian employees and can be made redundant at any time. There are four PCSOs working out of the Kingsbridge Police Station, but possibly not for too much longer.

The cuts would theoretically see the number of police officers in Devon and Cornwall plummet to around 2,240. Before the Tory-led Government came to power in 2010, there were 3,500.

Sgt Green concluded: ‘Whatever happens, everyone here, down to the last person, will continue to be proud to serve Kingsbridge and will continue to do so to the best of our professional ability, for as long as we are allowed to do so.’