Dear Sir,
There is an easy answer to the article in last week’s edition of the Newton News, by someone who does not want to be named.
It is basically that we have been cast aside as the PCC does not have the finances for a new police station. I would surmise that the money they had has been spent on the white elephant down the road and a transit van for the PCC, Joy Allen.
The unit in Spennymoor was, as per planning permission, to be a central holding and processing centre, which has now turned into a hub. Does this comply with the original planning, to accommodate the space for the people who could not fit into the small new headquarters?
When we had the meeting at the Aycliffe Council offices, we discovered that when Joy Allen took over she had no remit for a new police station in our town and the problems only came to her attention when the lease in the fire station ran out and the outcry from our disgusted residents.
At the meeting, the PCC was unable to say how much money they got from the sale of the old police station and where that money went, a guess was on police cars and new technology for the force or some thought it went to the Spennymoor unit.
She was also unable to answer most of the questions regarding a new station, not even a positive one, the excuse being it needed to be in the town centre and no suitable building could be found. Joy Allen then tried to tell us that the anti-social behaviour incidents had gone down, which is not true, as the result of no confidence in the police and not being able, at times, to make contact, the public were no longer contacting them. If we listen to our residents ASB has actually gone up.
One of the questions I asked of Joy was, there were just excuses to make us hang on until the unit at Spennymoor was finished and we would be policed from there – no positive answer came.
One answer to the problem could be if our MP, Paul Howell, got us some levelling up money, the local council and Durham County Council, along with the town centre owners, got together, maybe the now unused multi storey car park could be revamped to include a police station.
The last question, asked by a reporter to Joy Allen, do you not think you should apologise to the people of Aycliffe for letting them down? Did not hear her answer. I would think the people in this town have no confidence in our Labour PCC, she should now be held to account by the DCC police and crime panel.
John Armstrong
Defoe Crescent, Newton Aycliffe