Motto Be safe feel safe Annual budget £177M (2011–12) | Formed 1857 | |
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Legal personality Governmental: Government agency Size 905 square miles (2,340 km) | ||
Cheshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the English unitary authorities of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton (including Runcorn, and Widnes) and Warrington. The force is responsible for policing an area of 946 square miles (2,450 km2) with a population of roughly 1 million.
Contents
- History
- Governance
- Chief Constables
- Force structure
- Basic command unit structure
- Headquarters based teams
- Road policing
- Creamfields
- Air operations unit
- Collaborations
- Crime statistics
- Cheshire Constabulary and the media
- Officers killed in the line of duty
- References
The Chief Constable of the Cheshire Constabulary since 2014 is Simon Byrne. He was the Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police from 2009 to 2011 and the Assistant Commissioner for Territorial Policing in the Metropolitan Police Service from 2011 until his appointment in late 2014, taking over from David Whatton by unanimous approval by the Cheshire Police and Crime Panel in late February 2014.
The Deputy Chief Constable is Janette McCormick. The two Assistant Chief Constables are Sarah Boycott and Darren Martland.
History
A constabulary was first formed under the Cheshire Constabulary Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4, c.97) which was amended by the Cheshire Constabulary Act 1852. The passage of the County and Borough Police Act in 1856 led to the dissolution of this force and the creation of a second Constabulary. Many of the officers continued to serve in the new force and there was clauses in the Act which allowed their pension rights to continue.
The first Chief Constable was Captain Thomas Johnnes Smith, late of the Bedfordshire Militia. The first full Cheshire Police Committee met at the Crewe Arms Hotel, Crewe, on 3 February 1857 and the new Cheshire Constabulary was officially formed on 20 April 1857.
The first Headquarters was established at 4 Seller Street, Chester. In 1862 this office was removed to 1 Egerton Street, Chester and remained there until 1870, when it was removed to 113 Foregate Street. In 1893 the Court of Quarter Sessions approved the building of a new Headquarters which was erected at 142 Foregate Street and designed by John Douglas, at a cost not exceeding £2,000. This continued to be used, together with the adjoining buildings, until 1967, when a new purpose-built Headquarters was opened at Nuns Road, Chester. This building served the Constabulary until 2004 when the Headquarters building moved to a purpose-built complex at Clemonds Hey, Winsford. In 1965, the force had an establishment of 1,359 and an actual strength of 1,329.
It was proposed by the Home Secretary on 6 February 2006 that Cheshire should merge with the Merseyside Police, to form a strategic police force, but these proposals were later abandoned.
The Museum of Policing in Cheshire preserves and researches the heritage of policing in the county.
Governance
The current Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner is David Keane. From the 15 November 2012 to the 5th of May 2016, John Dwyer held the office. The police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Cheshire Police and Crime Panel, made up of elected councillors from the local authorities in the police area. Before November 2012 the Cheshire Police Authority was the police governance.
Chief Constables
Force structure
The Constabulary covers the following council areas:
In 2015 the structure of the force was changed to cover eight Local Policing Units (LPUs) across the county.
Basic command unit structure
Each area has several specialist teams, namely:
Headquarters-based teams
To support the BCUs, several centralised teams operate from the headquarters:
Road policing
The Cheshire road system is made up of 3,417 miles (5,499 km) of highway. The constabulary is responsible for policing one of the longest stretches of motorway in Britain. The force patrols 214 miles (344 km) of the M6, M62, M53 and M56 motorways, which has 23 interchanges and 4 service areas. The M6 motorway across the Thelwall Viaduct carries 140,000 vehicles every 24 hours. Delays and incidents on the motorway can have a severe impact on the economic life of the entire North West Region.
Creamfields
Cheshire Constabulary is responsible for policing the annual Creamfields dance and music festival that takes place over the August bank holiday weekend every year at Daresbury in Halton, close to Runcorn and Warrington.
Air operations unit
Since December 2001 Cheshire Police have operated a Britten-Norman Islander fixed-wing aircraft, registration G-CHEZ. This model of aircraft is used worldwide in a variety of roles. It is particularly suited to police aviation as it is able to carry a wide range of equipment and stay airborne for long periods of time. This equipment allows it to operate during the day or night, in most weather conditions. It is cleared for flight in cloud and bad weather, but the majority of police operations require visual contact with the ground. If required, it can carry up to six persons.
The aircraft is operated by a team of civilian pilots, four police observers and one sergeant ensure the aircraft is available all year. The aircraft is used to conduct a wide range of policing work providing emergency responses to incidents involving threat to life, commission of crime and searching for missing persons. It also conducts deployments for non-crime searches, scene management at incidents and video evidence gathering.
On 27 February 2009, the Constabulary confirmed that the Home Office had agreed to jointly fund the purchase of a new £1 million Eurocopter EC135 aircraft, to be operational 24 hours a day.
On 18 July 2011, the North West Air Operations Group (NWAOG) was launched. The NWAOG is a regional collaboration between five forces and police authorities. The service dispatches aircraft from a regional command desk to incidents across Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales.
The five forces in the North have four helicopters, based at four different locations throughout the North West, providing a service anywhere in the region, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
With 24-hour cover, the collaboration will enable the five forces to cope better with demand, with efficient use of all four helicopters, whilst enabling forces to make further savings and maintain resilience across the region. This is a move away from the concept of having one helicopter serving one region, to adopting the identity of one unit with support provided to all five forces
The collaboration allows for considerable savings, while offering an improved air support service. Benefits of the arrangement include the facility to have the closest helicopter deployed quickly to any incident and if there are two incidents in the same force area, then two helicopters can be deployed as necessary.
Collaborations
Cheshire Constabulary is a partner in the following collaborations:
Crime statistics
Cheshire Constabulary's crime statistics for recorded crimes are:
Cheshire Constabulary and the media
During 2005/06, the force was featured in the BBC TV series Traffic Cops.
Former Chief Constable Peter Fahy called for the legal age of buying alcohol to increase to the age of 21 as a result of the Garry Newlove murder in 2007.
Officers killed in the line of duty
The Police Roll of Honour Trust lists and commemorates all British police officers killed in the line of duty. The Police Memorial Trust since its establishment in 1984 has erected over 38 memorials to some of those officers.
Since 1788 the following officers of Cheshire Constabulary were killed while attempting to prevent, stop or resolve a crime: