THE easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the re-opening of pubs and bars has increased the demand placed on Essex Police officers.<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s Police Federation says a recent Friday night beat the record for most 999 shouts in one evening as members report they are going to \u2018job, after job, after job.\u2019<\/p>\n
Officers still have concerns about the virus, and how a second wave might affect them and their families, Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said, but for now at least, things are almost back to normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last two weeks there\u2019s been a massive increase in demand, and I\u2019d say it\u2019s actually beyond what we would normally be expecting at this time of year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it will be the lovely weather that we\u2019ve had which has brought people out. Also, people have been cooped up at home for a long time; they\u2019re now making the most of getting out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had lots of gatherings of people which we continue to try and encourage people not to do because the threat is still there from coronavirus and we\u2019re starting to see, especially in other countries, the peaks are going back up, and it\u2019s starting to affect us.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think people have gone stir crazy and that\u2019s why they now want to be out, which then causes issues for officers as well,\u201d Laura added.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne Friday night was the most amount of calls we\u2019ve ever taken in a day, and then after getting through that, it was beaten again on the Saturday night with in excess of 1360. The reports I\u2019m getting back from officers over the weekend, it was just absolutely ridiculous.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just job, job, job. At the moment I\u2019d say our resourcing is still really good. But we are still struggling with sheer demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The virus continues to be of concern to officers and their families particularly as the country now seems resigned to another pandemic wave arriving in the autumn.<\/p>\n
Travel quarantine rules are also threatening officers\u2019 much-needed breaks and holidays.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of officers felt they might be exempt from quarantine rules,\u201d Laura said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t necessarily know why; our role doesn\u2019t make us immune. But I know it\u2019s caused a lot of issues, especially since the enforcement of the quarantine from Spain, a lot of officers are now missing out on holidays that were booked during the summer, especially those that have booked them post-COVID.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organisation is trying to accommodate that and allowing people to work from home but if it\u2019s not possible then officers have to cover that quarantine period with other leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, if they have a week abroad then they have to take an extra two weeks\u2019 annual leave just to cover the quarantine period, which is having a massive effect on officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt now leaves them having to make an informed decision as to whether or not they\u2019re going to take that holiday or cancel it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s so essential for officers wellbeing to take their leave and get that break away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the re-opening of pubs and bars has increased the demand placed on Essex Police officers. The county\u2019s Police Federation says a recent Friday\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137742,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137569\/revisions\/137742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/137660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}