During my recent one-to-one with Bedfordshire Police Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst, we touched on a few subjects, some of which were from questions sent to me by residents.
Among the areas covered included:
1) Number of police and PCSOs available for Sandy. How does force decide deployments of police resources. Is this based on population size, crime demand levels or combination of both?
2) Update on community police teams, current vacancies and what the teams are tasked with doing?
3) Details on force performance on domestic burglaries in light of public statements by Bedfordshire PCC and now former Mayor of Bedford. Who is right among the two?
4) Update on Force Control Room performance, especially call wait times for 101 and 999. What impact is the new AWS technology having performance? When will the transcript copy of chats and multi-jobs issue be resolved?
5) What plans are in place to accurately measure public confidence? What does the force do with the data?
6) Shopkeepers and businesses have raised concerns about Bedfordshire Police response to business crime. They have CCTV, they know who the individuals are. I am informed police do not call back, and often, nothing happens about their reports. The issue of post incident/reporting contact is a regular complaint. What can the force do to address the concerns of local retailers, especially when they have taken all sensible security measures such as CCTV, alarm systems, tagging products etc?
7) Can the Chief Constable please explain why so few crimes are solved and what can be done to improve these? Recent meetings with residents identified fears about reporting crimes or giving evidence to a crime they witnessed. What advice can the Chief Constable give to residents about how to safely assist an investigation, report a crime and what support is there for such people during an investigation?
You can watch the recording from 25 April 2023 to find out more about the discussions between PCC Festus Akinbusoye and Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst.