TOWN CENTRE POLICE OFF 'COP-OUT' ROW

The office in Harold Place is open sporadically '“ and councillors want that to change in the fight against town centre violence.

The community police offices opened in a blaze of publicity four years ago when they were to become base for three beat bobbies.

But this week as Operation Resolve, a special operation putting high visibility patrols on the streets to target violent crime was launched, it was revealed the police box is closed most of the time.

And police were accused of a "cop out" over failure to keep the offices open by former mayor Godfrey Daniel who performed the opening ceremony back in 1999.

He declared: "Hastings has the highest crime in any town centre in Sussex, particularly in violent crime at night. The police office there is crying out to be used."

Cllr Daniel told the Observer: "I understand most of the time it's closed and it's erratic at best. You have a resource in the middle of the town with a high rate of violence. It's a cop-out for police. I think they are trying to off load responsibilities. When they opened that police office we were told it would make a huge contribution to policing in the town centre. Now it's a visible sign of neglect."

He stressed they didn't want to give the town centre over to young people drinking too much but wanted to encourage more family use at night. They needed police officers at the police office during the evening as well as the day.

Division commander, Chief Inspector Ken Taylor, said the problem was a limited number of front office staff. They made an effort to open it but it wasn't consistent and no one could rely on it.

Describing it as a "fantastic resource", he said: "It's too good to lose because it's in the middle of the late night drinking area but you can't divert police officers to keep it open because they have got to be out on patrol responding to calls and dealing with priority crime. We are exploring ways of making it more available to the public and more recognisable as a meeting point and place of safety.

"We haven't maximised the opportunity of its use and now we are looking at how we are going to do it."

He said: "My ideal would be to open it in the evenings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I could divert staff to it but there is not a pot of new staff."

He said they could open it as a multi agency community safety-type office dealing with community safety issues.

David Veness, chairman of the crime reduction partnership, said: "I can staff it with street wardens but then I would have to take them off the street to do it."

Mayor Phil Scott said: "We want high visibility policing, not one mile out of Hastings up the road. We should seriously consider opening it up."

Cllr Pam Brown said: "Police sit in there working upstairs and they don't want to be accessible to the public. Castle Ward Forum action plan wants it open. Someone has got to explain why it's not open to the public."