Arresting sight of police chiefs falling out over Salisbury

‘ELLO ’ello ’ello (forgive the cliché, it’s irresistible in this context), what’s going on ’ere then?
Yep, it’s that old custody suite saga again.
Do you think all is proceeding in a harmonious direction between Police Commissioner Angus ‘Nine Jobs’ Macpherson and his chief constable Patrick Geenty? I’m darn sure it isn’t.
The chief constable has let slip that he threatened to resign if the city doesn’t get a new custody suite to replace the cells it will lose when the police station is turned into a fancy new school. Good for him.
He issued his ultimatum, he said, despite a custody suite “not making sense in business terms”.
Whose business terms would those be, then?
Certainly not those of our local solicitors, faced with trekking to and from Melksham to see their clients.
Or those of the unfortunate souls released from custody there, who will have to make their way home via what passes for a public transport system.
Could they be the business terms dreamed up by Commissioner Macpherson and his cronies in Trowbridge, none of whom will be troubled by actually having to make the journey across the Plain?
Probably. They treated our police station as a costly and unnecessary perk and don’t seem to grasp Salisbury’s role as a centre for the southern half of the county.
Why, by the way, did Mr Geenty bring up the subject of whether it made business sense to have a basic cell block here for the forces of law and order?
It makes common sense, to all but the most blinkered bean-counters. Anyway, I thought that all the savings the force will make from getting rid of the police station were meant to pay for it?
The official line has always been that there would be a custody suite here but that they didn’t quite know where….
So was there still a battle raging privately about whether to have one at all? I’d say yes, on the basis that chief constables don’t go publicly threatening to throw their toys out of the pram for nothing.
The old engine sheds (owners – you guessed it, Wiltshire Council) seem to be the site that’s flavour of the month. That’s where the Vision team’s been talking about creating some much-needed extra parking for commuters.
And to think the County Hall Commissariat (www.ifiruledtheworld.gov.uk) were hatching other plans all the time!
Still, maybe there’ll be room for everyone (before 7am).
Speaking of which, there used to be a saying: If you want to know the time, ask a policeman. I’m not sure I’d trouble one at the moment. Poor devils don’t seem to know whether they’re coming or going.