Changes to city police command

[dutchman]

Changes to city police command

A MAJOR restructuring of the city's police force was launched this week.

Programme Paragon aims to streamline Coventry's police operation, spearheaded by the city's Chief Superintendent Steve Glover.

Under the restructuring, the city's three police command centres - based at Little Park Street, Chace Avenue, and Stoney Stanton Road police stations - have been scrapped in favour of one command centre covering the whole city.

Now the city has been split into four sectors, with an inspector in charge of each one. Furthermore, the restructuring includes splitting the city into 18 neighbourhoods, redrawn to match with the city council's wards, with each neighbourhood led by a sergeant in control of a team of police constables and community support officers.

Officers also sport a new look in the new structure - with white shirts replaced by zip-up black shirts for officers and dark blue zip-up shirts for community support officers.

A new, low-cost switchboard number has also been launched - 0345 1135000 - to make it cheaper to call the police from mobile phones.

Ch Supt Glover said: "This restructure reinforces our commitment to local policing and allows us to concentrate on the neighbourhood issues affecting our communities the most.

"There's no reduction in frontline services, in fact the number of police officers in neighbourhoods is increased slightly by reducing some of the support functions and consolidating officers from across the city.

"The public will soon get to know their neighbourhood officers and PCSOs and I would invite people to talk to them about the issues that concern them," he added. " Personal contact is very important to us and we're now better placed than ever to react to local issues on the street."

For more information about the restructuring, visit http://www.west-midlands.police.uk