Responding to A6 Concerns; Simon Cole QPM, Chief Constable, Leicestershire Police writes
1st February 2021 | Community
Having read the Kibworth Chronicle article on concerns about speeding on the A6 I thought that I might reassure your readers that your hugely committed neighbourhood team, and the Force wide multi-agency Safer Roads Partnership, are aware of those concerns and have given them appropriate attention. Of course those concerns aren’t the only ones that we have to deal with; in 2020 we dealt with over 141,000 emergency 999 calls, 96% of them answered within 10 seconds, over 333,000 non-emergency calls, 68% of them answered within 30 seconds, and well over 16,000 online reports. We have also made over 12,000 arrests (132 of which in December alone were for drink or drug driving), dealt with an average of 16 missing person reports every day and handled over 19,000 reports of COVID related incidents. That level of calls for service from local people means that we have to prioritise, especially as we rebuild police numbers after the pressures of austerity reduced our officer numbers from 2352 in 2010, when I became Chief Constable, to fewer than 1800 at some points. We are now recruiting again and heading back towards (and hopefully beyond) 2000 officers, which can only be good news for local communities and bad news for offenders.
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