Federation Plans Weekly Station Visits

HAMPSHIRE Police Federation plans to visit police stations across the county every week now lockdown measures are starting to ease.

COVID restrictions meant Chair Zoe Wakefield and Secretary Garry Smith couldn’t visit stations to meet colleagues to discuss their needs and concerns.

But now that lockdown measures are starting to ease, the tour of the county’s stations is back on.

Zoe said: “It’s been really frustrating, not getting out there and meeting people.

“But we’ve got a plan in place now, and each week we’ll be going out to a different force area. It started with a visit to Portsmouth.

“It’s been so lovely to get out and about and talk to members.”

So far, pensions and the recruit of new student officers have dominated the conversations.

Zoe added: “We’ve had students telling us they don’t think their training prepared them for everything they would be seeing out on patrol.

“Supervisors have told us they’ve had to do impromptu training out in the car parks to address some of these gaps.

“These are response officers who are intensely busy anyway, and given the significant input of recruits, there’s lots to do.

“The student officers want to get the benefit of their experience, and there might be a shortfall in their training, so it’s something we’ll be looking to talk to the force about.

“We’re heading to the north of the county next, so it will be interesting to see if it’s a similar story there; if it’s a common problem, we can gather the evidence and present it to the force.”