UK Police helicopter budget cuts
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In the Public Domain :
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&sou...G6jz9g&cad=rja
West Midlands Police Authority - arrangements for Regional Air support.
West Midlands Police Authority - arrangements for Regional Air support.
Purveyor of Egg Liqueur to Lucifer
Has anybody started to move yet?
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So looks like from coco's post the midlands will be the first to join up. Nice to see them on the news last night. Not sure who gave them the price of 4.5 mil for the cost of the aircraft. Bit of poetic licence....
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Hey Whitehead - don't be so anxious !
Methinks that it's gone quiet because nothing is happening - not yet anyway....
I don't think anyone has actually been forced to close yet,
and there appears to be another week to go before some of them start with the joined up thinking ......
if a previously referenced document is anything to go by :
Methinks that it's gone quiet because nothing is happening - not yet anyway....
I don't think anyone has actually been forced to close yet,
and there appears to be another week to go before some of them start with the joined up thinking ......
if a previously referenced document is anything to go by :
RECOMMENDATION
27. West Midlands Police Authority notes and supports the arrangement for interoperability of the four Air Support Units within the Greater Midlands Region
as a ‘Shadow Service’ in line with the Central region construct of the National Police Air Service (NPAS) from 1 June 2011.
27. West Midlands Police Authority notes and supports the arrangement for interoperability of the four Air Support Units within the Greater Midlands Region
as a ‘Shadow Service’ in line with the Central region construct of the National Police Air Service (NPAS) from 1 June 2011.
Chiltern ASU criticised
Chopper used in broken window hunt - Yahoo! News
Police have defended themselves amid claims of heavy-handedness after using a helicopter and two officers to find a schoolboy who kicked a football through a greenhouse.
Tom Clarke, 15, was playing in a pub garden in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, when a miss-kick sent the ball over a fence and into a glass pane next door.
Moments later a police helicopter which was flying in the area was spotted by an officer on the ground and asked to help find the culprit after the incident was reported by the greenhouse owner.
Tom apologised to the owner and will pay for the damage, according to Thames Valley Police, who said the case was treated as criminal damage. No arrests were made and no caution was issued but police said that any crime recorded could be used in an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check if relevant to the job applied for.
Tom's father, Darrin Clarke, 42, accused officers of being heavy-handed, telling reporters that his son's "future work life is at risk because of a stupid accident playing football".
The TaxPayers' Alliance also questioned the appropriateness of the resources used.
Campaign director Emma Boon said: "With huge pressures on the police budgets there must be a more proportionate response to incidents like this. A kid accidentally kicking a football through a window should be a matter that neighbours can quietly resolve between them. It's sad that this was not the case in this instance."
Police said they would not scramble their helicopter for low-level crimes but that it may be asked to help by officers on the ground if already airborne nearby.
A police spokesman said: "Thames Valley Police works with limited resources and must ensure these are used appropriately. On this occasion, the crime had just occurred, therefore two officers were sent to deal with it.
"Thames Valley Police would not deploy the force helicopter for low-level crimes such as criminal damage. However, if the helicopter is already airborne and in the area they may be asked to assist by officers on the ground, as happened in this case."
Tom Clarke, 15, was playing in a pub garden in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, when a miss-kick sent the ball over a fence and into a glass pane next door.
Moments later a police helicopter which was flying in the area was spotted by an officer on the ground and asked to help find the culprit after the incident was reported by the greenhouse owner.
Tom apologised to the owner and will pay for the damage, according to Thames Valley Police, who said the case was treated as criminal damage. No arrests were made and no caution was issued but police said that any crime recorded could be used in an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check if relevant to the job applied for.
Tom's father, Darrin Clarke, 42, accused officers of being heavy-handed, telling reporters that his son's "future work life is at risk because of a stupid accident playing football".
The TaxPayers' Alliance also questioned the appropriateness of the resources used.
Campaign director Emma Boon said: "With huge pressures on the police budgets there must be a more proportionate response to incidents like this. A kid accidentally kicking a football through a window should be a matter that neighbours can quietly resolve between them. It's sad that this was not the case in this instance."
Police said they would not scramble their helicopter for low-level crimes but that it may be asked to help by officers on the ground if already airborne nearby.
A police spokesman said: "Thames Valley Police works with limited resources and must ensure these are used appropriately. On this occasion, the crime had just occurred, therefore two officers were sent to deal with it.
"Thames Valley Police would not deploy the force helicopter for low-level crimes such as criminal damage. However, if the helicopter is already airborne and in the area they may be asked to assist by officers on the ground, as happened in this case."
Last edited by Senior Pilot; 26th May 2011 at 12:45. Reason: Add quotes from link
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reminds me of when I lived in Ealing in london. Car crime was rife, as were burglaries in the area I lived in then on three successive saturday nights around 2 am a police helicopter was overhead. When I enquired on the third occasion why it was presetn giving us yet another waking night with the kids, it was out because some drunken yob cracked a bank window. No suggestion of anything more than this, the police officer was wholly inapproprite suggesting I was anti helicopter, until I reminded him that this type of use of them on one occasion in the States resulted in restrictions.
A certain police aviation conference in Bilbao, Spain had an interesting presentation on NPAS yesterday afternoon.
Needless to say it was not direct from any one directly related to NPAS [indeed it was a Spanish company!] but it was a small degree of enlightenment.
Still most outcomes are foggy [as in no one really knows how this is going to work] and no attempt was made by NPAS to address the delegates directly or to seek to network among some of the major players in industry and Euro-policing. The tortoise has retracted its head and is not listening.
Needless to say it was not direct from any one directly related to NPAS [indeed it was a Spanish company!] but it was a small degree of enlightenment.
Still most outcomes are foggy [as in no one really knows how this is going to work] and no attempt was made by NPAS to address the delegates directly or to seek to network among some of the major players in industry and Euro-policing. The tortoise has retracted its head and is not listening.
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The TaxPayers' Alliance also questioned the appropriateness of the resources used.
Campaign director Emma Boon said: "With huge pressures on the police budgets there must be a more proportionate response to incidents like this. A kid accidentally kicking a football through a window should be a matter that neighbours can quietly resolve between them. It's sad that this was not the case in this instance."
Campaign director Emma Boon said: "With huge pressures on the police budgets there must be a more proportionate response to incidents like this. A kid accidentally kicking a football through a window should be a matter that neighbours can quietly resolve between them. It's sad that this was not the case in this instance."
Police said they would not scramble their helicopter for low-level crimes but that it may be asked to help by officers on the ground if already airborne nearby.
A police spokesman said: "Thames Valley Police works with limited resources and must ensure these are used appropriately. On this occasion, the crime had just occurred, therefore two officers were sent to deal with it.
"Thames Valley Police would not deploy the force helicopter for low-level crimes such as criminal damage. However, if the helicopter is already airborne and in the area they may be asked to assist by officers on the ground, as happened in this case."
A police spokesman said: "Thames Valley Police works with limited resources and must ensure these are used appropriately. On this occasion, the crime had just occurred, therefore two officers were sent to deal with it.
"Thames Valley Police would not deploy the force helicopter for low-level crimes such as criminal damage. However, if the helicopter is already airborne and in the area they may be asked to assist by officers on the ground, as happened in this case."
The TaxPayers' Alliance needs to rein in the use of police aviation units.
Bobby's on the beat produce a better result.
In the case of the broken greenhouse glass it would have been a lot more cost effective.
As a taxpayer and pilot I resent the waste of public money on the proliferation
of police air support units.
Time to get back to ad hoc charter.
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I'd suggest that the Surrey / Sussex collaboration is really no change, or an improvement, to the situation that existed before April Fool's Day - these dates are always so appropriate, aren't they!
Given that Hampshire had already retired their fixed-wing, Surrey had been covering their neck-of-the-woods anyway. Getting into bed with Sussex only means that there's a bit of mutual aid when one unit is stretched with a job at the end of its leash, or down for maintenance (this has been working in East Anglia for years). For slow-time jobs, this isn't really a problem, as an extra 10-15 mins transit will unlikely affect the price of fish, although it could cause problems if they need to haul-ar*e back to their own patch. Any task, requiring more rapid response, however, will be invalid if either machine has a long transit, collaboration or not.
As with this whole plan, the singular failure is in the understanding of the importance of transit time for different jobs. Reaction time is critical to effective aerial policing of many tasks - the really sad thing is that too many believe (from Chief Constables (having been sold "savings" by NPAS) to Control Room Inspectors) that getting an aircraft overhead, no matter that the horse bolted some while previously, is the only thing that matters. When it comes to the crunch, they will be able to say that they "deployed all resources available", no matter that the longer (than pre-NPAS) deployment time completely neutered the effectiveness of the airborne resource.
There's so much time spent covering backsides, that there's often little left to get on with the job!
Given that Hampshire had already retired their fixed-wing, Surrey had been covering their neck-of-the-woods anyway. Getting into bed with Sussex only means that there's a bit of mutual aid when one unit is stretched with a job at the end of its leash, or down for maintenance (this has been working in East Anglia for years). For slow-time jobs, this isn't really a problem, as an extra 10-15 mins transit will unlikely affect the price of fish, although it could cause problems if they need to haul-ar*e back to their own patch. Any task, requiring more rapid response, however, will be invalid if either machine has a long transit, collaboration or not.
As with this whole plan, the singular failure is in the understanding of the importance of transit time for different jobs. Reaction time is critical to effective aerial policing of many tasks - the really sad thing is that too many believe (from Chief Constables (having been sold "savings" by NPAS) to Control Room Inspectors) that getting an aircraft overhead, no matter that the horse bolted some while previously, is the only thing that matters. When it comes to the crunch, they will be able to say that they "deployed all resources available", no matter that the longer (than pre-NPAS) deployment time completely neutered the effectiveness of the airborne resource.
There's so much time spent covering backsides, that there's often little left to get on with the job!
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..... both state that the helicopter was hovering at a height of 20 feet!
Police helicopters will fly at this height - at least twice during every flight
!
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PAvNews
PAvNews mentions the Bilbao conference and the update of NPAS - given by a Spanish contractor - possibly a Spanish waiter named Manuel. What a definative source that is!
Perhaps it was the same source that led to the editorial comment in the May edition of PAvNews along the lines of the April meeting of NPAS had to be paid for by forces. WRONG. I believe the meeting in April was a slight change to the platform User Working Groups that have been held every 6 months for some years. (Previously, they were held in hotels with conference facilities - but this was held on a police training site hence cheaper). Delegates had to pay for there own rooms, but overall 000's of £'s were saved. The word is that there was an NPAS update at the end - strange if there wasn't
A decent journal might be expected to publish an apology in next months edition. We'll see. It might help if PAvNews reported fact, not fiction and cut the editorial burble.
As for Bilbao, PAVNews has an obvious interest in arranging PAvCon - presumeably this is why he is trying to bait the NPAS team to attending.
Perhaps it was the same source that led to the editorial comment in the May edition of PAvNews along the lines of the April meeting of NPAS had to be paid for by forces. WRONG. I believe the meeting in April was a slight change to the platform User Working Groups that have been held every 6 months for some years. (Previously, they were held in hotels with conference facilities - but this was held on a police training site hence cheaper). Delegates had to pay for there own rooms, but overall 000's of £'s were saved. The word is that there was an NPAS update at the end - strange if there wasn't
A decent journal might be expected to publish an apology in next months edition. We'll see. It might help if PAvNews reported fact, not fiction and cut the editorial burble.
As for Bilbao, PAVNews has an obvious interest in arranging PAvCon - presumeably this is why he is trying to bait the NPAS team to attending.
W06
I meant no such thing as I have no knowledge of the situation to which you referred.
I say what I mean and mean what I say; so please do not read anything else into my comments than is actually there.
I meant no such thing as I have no knowledge of the situation to which you referred.
I say what I mean and mean what I say; so please do not read anything else into my comments than is actually there.