Dinnington residents quiz police at meeting

About 100 people packed into Dinnington’s Salvation Army Church on Monday for a heated meeting with Rotherham police commander Chief Supt Rob Odell and South Yorkshire police commissioner Dr Alan Billings.

High on the agenda was Dinnington police station, which closed last year because “it didn’t make sense financially” according to the force.

Monday’s meeting was yards from where the body of Leonne Weeks was found last week but had been arranged before the 16-year-old’s murder.

Tim Wells, of Victoria Street, said: “The main thing being said was that people want a police station back in Dinnington and they want to see a reasonable number of police staffing it as well.

“Our community’s size has grown but the police station has closed. 

“I worked out that a reasonable number of officers for a town of our size would be 25 police officers and 25 clerical staff.

“At the minute, we’ve only got two PCSOs and there is no cover from 10pm until the following morning, which is the time of major incidents.”

Mr Wells said he was not very impressed by the replies of Dr Billings and Chief Supt Odell.

He said: “I think we are being fobbed off and I don’t think anything is going to change.

“We had an attack by someone dressed as a clown on the same footpath as the murder in November where a lad could have lost his eye or life.

“The problem is that if people realise they can get away with petty crime it quickly escalates.”

Dr Billings said: “I told the meeting we couldn’t give any assurances about the police station and it was very difficult to get across that we don’t need them anymore because policing has changed.

“People may think there is a lack of police in Dinnington but it’s not a Dinnington specific problem. The number of officers has gone down.

“Hopefully we can address that by looking at the neighbourhood policing plan because that has gone wrong over the last 12 months.”

Dr Billings is currently running a public consultation over plans to rise the police precept - paid as part of council tax - by around 6p per week for band A and B properties, which he said would enable the force to maintain the same number of officers over the next year.

Chief Supt Odell also said funding cuts had led to a reduction in officers across the county - not just Dinnington.

He added: “Dinnington police station has been closed for a long time. It’s a very old building and it’s inefficient to run.

“South Yorkshire Police has got many buildings like that and to put improvements into the building would just not be worth the money.

“What we have got to do is consolidate our buildings because you get a better bang for your buck.

“Surely members of the public would understand that we would rather lose a building than members of staff.

“When you look at the amount of cops we’ve lost, we are going to need less buildings because we have got less people.”