Home Office reveals huge fall in Essex traffic police officers

ESSEX Police has seen has seen a 70 per cent drop in traffic police officers over the last four years, from 257 officers in March 2010 to 76 in March last year.

This marked a far greater fall than the national average decrease of 23 per cent. The total number of traffic officers in England and Wales fell from 5,635 at the end of March 2010 to 4,356 by the end of March 2014, according to the Home Office.

Only two forces in the country, Suffolk and Warwickshire, saw an increase in their traffic units.

It is thought the Essex numbers may include such a great loss as the 257 figure is thought to have included Armed Response Vehicles.

Pete Williams, head of external affairs at the RAC, said the figures made a “mockery of motoring law” with officers unavailable to catch drivers committing offences.

It comes as the number of people killed on UK roads rose by one per cent to 1,711 in the year ending September 2014. The Institute of Advanced Motorists blamed “many years of government cutbacks and the resulting drop in visible policing” for the increase.

But a Home Office spokeswoman insisted that police had enough resources as crime had fallen by more than a fifth under the coalition.

“What matters is how officers are deployed, not how many of them there are in total,” she said. “The reduction in crime nationwide demonstrates there is no simple link between officer numbers and crime levels, the visibility of the police in the community and the quality of service provided.”

Ch Supt Andy Prophet, from Essex Police, said the force reduced the number of roads patrol officers from 140 to 80 last September following a review. However, he said, before the review those 140 officers were not dedicated to roads policing and spent half their time on other policing duties. The 80 remaining officers are now dedicated to roads policing and will be supported by a further 111 officers and staff in other specialist road policing functions.

“Roads in Essex are safer now than they have ever been. However, we continue to strive to drive down the number of people who are injured or killed on our roads,” he said.

Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: “The only thing that can be done is reinvestment. Reinvestment in policing. There’s £72.5 million that has already been cut from Essex, has gone, and we’ve lost those, and we’re already struggling so there needs to be some reinvestment to put officers back on the street, so that we can actually do the job we’re meant to do.

“And with the amount of RTCs going up, the amount of people injured going up, pedestrian injuries going up, motorcycle injuries going up, well I think that that smacks of there’s not enough traffic police officers out there being seen and doing the job.”