Quite a week with some great contrasts. Important arrests for some serious crimes in the city including the horrible assault on the cyclist down near the Itchen, the court sentences for those who caused violence at the Pompey game and then the government announcements about huge budget cuts. Officers and police staff are understandably proud of some of our successes but have concerns about what the future holds. Our Chief Constable is quite clear that we will not sacrifice the work we do to protect vulnerable people, keep our presence in every neighbourhood and still catch criminals. But the Constabulary is going to have to find some serious cuts to meet future budgets. I will do all I can to look after the interests of the City and my officers and staff but we too will have to take our share of the cuts. Our new building is still going to be finished and occupied by April next year. If it seems a bit of a luxury in these times of financial hardship then I get that but we have to have somewhere new to work as we are not able to stay at the Civic Centre for much longer, the diggers are getting closer every day. I will be making sure that we don’t waste any money on the fit out and we operate from the new building with as much efficiency as possible.
Finally if you saw the story about the operation at YMCA then the 'readers' comment on the echo website was correct when it pointed out that the Echo was quite wrong to suggest we use machine guns - a bit sensationalist I think, semi-automatics - yes, machine guns? Definitely not.
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