CREWE Police Station is to play its part in a shake-up of how Cheshire Constabulary polices local communities.

The force is looking to introduce Local Policing Units, which bring staff together to start their shift, and Crewe is one of eight police stations where officers will start the shifts.

Officers from Nantwich will start their shifts in the town before travelling the five miles to cover the town.

Cheshire’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark Roberts said he was confident the changes would not impact on the service the force provided to the public.

The force is undergoing a reorganisation of how it polices local communities, and is investing in local policing by recruiting more officers, allocating a PCSO to every electoral ward and moving to eight Local Policing Units, putting more officers into front-line policing.

Mr Roberts said the force had carried out a review of spending to see how it could be more efficient and meet current and future operational and financial challenges by making different choices about how it used its assets and resources.

The benefits of Local Policing Units were identified in a pilot scheme in Ellesmere Port, he said.

“The units bring together staff in responding to calls, neighbourhood problem-solving, intelligence officers and investigators to start their shift together and be briefed across the teams simultaneously,” he said.

“The pilot showed bringing together staff in this way produced major benefits as they were able to share knowledge and maximise opportunities for working across teams, better supervision and leadership and ensured the right person was sent to deal with the crime or incident at the earliest opportunity.

“Bringing staff on in one place will also allow the organisation to make better choices concerning the use of resources such as the vehicle fleet, to get more efficient use of patrol cars to get where we are needed quickly while maintaining a local visible presence with officers in foot patrol in their local community.”