Report by News Editor

NICK HALLISSEY

MIDDLEWICH'S police station is little more than a 'locker room' according to town councillors - and they want that to change.

Councillors believe the police station should be manned at regular intervals, providing a face for community policing.

Clr Mike Hunter launched the plea at last week's council meeting.

He told colleagues: "People in Middlewich pay exactly the same in tax to the police as people in Chester, Warrington, Crewe or Winsford - and they deserve the same service as them and everyone else.

"I'm not saying we want it manned 24 hours a day, just at regular times so that people in this town would know when they could be sure of meeting someone.

"It just seems strange, faced with the fact that we need a bobby to work with the youth groups and the pensioners, that we have this facility but it doesn't get used.

"I have tremendous respect for the way the police operate, but I think this is just annoying."

Clr John Brown agreed, adding that Congleton's Liberal Democrats had decided to make community policing the main issue of their campaign at the next election.

He said: "I agree that we should have a manned police station and not a locker which is useless, but I feel we will be unsuccessful in appealing to the police for it in the current climate.

"Our candidate, David Lloyd-Griffiths, feels strongly that control of the police should be returned to the taxpayer, and then I personally would have more confidence in approaching the police about manning the station."

Clr Brown, who represents Middlewich Town Council on the Cheshire Police Forum, also believes that the warden scheme being piloted in the town is the only way to get back to the kind of community policing he and his colleagues want to see.

"It has caused some arguments, but I see it as a way to restore some faith in public policing."

Inspector Kevin Lunn defended the current state of the police station, and said that the building was providing a useful service for the town.

"Audits at the smaller stations found that there simply wasn't the demand," he said.

"We couldn't justify having a highly-paid officer sitting there just in case the odd local pops in to produce his driving licence.

"Instead, visitors can make a free phone call to the control room, and an officer on patrol in Middlewich can be assigned to meet them at the station.

"It is also used by motorway police - who are also asked to patrol the town when they can - and as a stop-off for officers out and about who have paperwork to do.

"So it would be quite wrong for people to assume it is just a shell doing nothing."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.