AN EXTRA 24 armed officers and traffic police are needed to ensure the county is covered, the chief constable said.
It follows announcements this year that Tri-Force would be disbanded. The collaboration saw Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire forces share armed, roads and dog units. It was set up in 2014 and is expected to come to an end next April.
Kier Pritchard said: “Armed officers are a vital aspect of modern day policing and that’s from the most specialist counter-terrorism firearms officers through to those guarding royalty in the county.
“The closure of tri-force means we will be able to embed our firearms officers, traffic officers and dog handlers back into our force. My role is to make sure I get the very best out of each of those officers and they work in concert with the community policing teams.
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“We may need more officers. The commissioner is prepared to make an investment to grow the number of officers we have.”
The extra 24 officers would bring Wiltshire up to the number flagged as necessary by a recent audit of the county force.
Wiltshire chief Mr Pritchard said the end of Tri-Force would not have an impact on Wiltshire Police’s ability to defend the county: “If there is a serious threat across the south west what happens after Tri-Force ends will be the same as what happens today. All of those armed officers will go to try and deal with it.
“Our firearms officers are trained to protect the public whether they are in the collaboration or not.
“I will be able to deploy them against county lines, knife crime and the threats we see here in our community.”
That could be ever more important, as police see a rising issue with knife crime. A total of 345 knife offences were recorded in the 12 months to July, compared to 324 the year before. In the rest of Wiltshire, knife crime reports dropped by 11 per cent.
He said: “We need to get to the heart of why it’s becoming normalised for people to feel the need to carry a weapon – and not just carrying but potentially using it.
“This isn’t something that’s just happening in London. By no means do we have the same challenges as we do in London, but we know that some of the county line drug gang activity we’ve seen in Wiltshire it’s more prevalent and people are carrying knives for protection”
One answer to the knife crime rise would be doing more work with youngsters to raise awareness of the dangers of carrying knives, he added.
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