POLICE in Witham could be given office space in a bid to reassure residents after the town’s police station shut its doors earlier this year.

Businesses and councillors in Witham are keen to see some sort of part-time office provision in the town, as they say there is a lack of community policing.

At a Witham Town Centre Strategy Group meeting held earlier this month, Wendy Harlow, Centre Manager at The Grove Centre, made the suggestion.

She said: “Accommodation availability will be investigated with landlords and Essex Police contacted to see if this proposal could be an option going forward.”

The town’s police station shut to the public in March this year.

Town Mayor, Patrick Horner, said it could make a big difference.

He said: “It’s definitely a good idea, often when cuts happen they start talking about space in libraries but we need somewhere for police to come in the middle of town.

“We are keen to see a little bit of space being used – we seem to go from one extreme to the other from the old huge police station.

“It would make quite a big difference just to be seen, people like to see police cars around.”

However Karen Edwards, who started Witham Crimewatch, said it was the lack of police that was an issue, rather than a lack of space.

She said: “Police have said they can no longer come to council meeting due to resource issues.

“I don’t think they would use it, it would just be empty. It’s the lack of police that’s the issue, not the space.”

The issue of police presence was discussed at a Community Committee meeting.

Rob Williams, who chaired the meeting, said funding cuts meant police have had to focus less on town council meetings.

He said: “The most important thing they can do is policing and we don’t want to prevent them from doing that, but when they have time we would like them to come to meetings as we provide a voice to them.

“We are a pretty big town now and this situation isn’t working for us. Our issue isn’t with policing as a whole, more low-level crime.”

He added: “I would much prefer to see a Bobby on the Beat and that’s what I believe provides the greatest level of comfort.”

A spokesperson for Essex Police said they are aware the local chamber of commerce is looking to progress the idea but have had no formal approach about it at this time.

He said: “We are delighted to see the local community taking an active interest in policing in Witham and ways to improve engagement between officers and the public, however we try to ensure our officers are in police stations or other buildings as little as possible so they can spend more time patrolling the streets and dealing with incidents.

“While we do not currently attend council meetings, and it has been some time since we did, the CPT holds monthly Local Community Meetings to which councillors and members of the public are invited.

We have previously had discussions with Witham Town Council about funding a PCSO and if they would like to do so in the future we will happily discuss it with them again.”