Police review could see West Berks merge with Reading

Policing in West Berkshire could be merging with Reading and Wokingham – returning to asimilar structure seen in 2010.

It is part of a £21m budget saving.

Currently, policing by Thames Valley Police is organised into 11 areas across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, with each area being led by a superintendent.

West Berkshire is one of these 11 areas, currently led by local policing area commander Zahid Aziz.

However, a restructure could see the West Berkshire policing area merged with Reading and Wokingham to form a new West Berkshire policing area.

That was revealed at a Reading Borough Council policy committee meeting on Monday.

Reading councillor Karen Rowland (Labour, Abbey) said that she was privy to a ‘workforce review notification’ in autumn 2022 which introduced a reduction of local policing areas from 11 to five.

“This will see us share a larger police for with both Wokingham and Newbury areas where the crimes and the sort of crimes that happen there are vastly different from what happens here," she said.

“Fighting for police to attend concerns in Reading which currently has the second highest serious crime rate in the Thames Valley, in a town that records the highest levels of serious violence in Berkshire would be concerning to us in such a new allocation."

In response, Thames Valley Police chief constable John Campbell said: “The review is about how we are generally delivering policing services.

“On a local level, the numbers aren’t affected, but you are starting to take out command functions and structures.

"At the moment, we’re in a place where we need to review to see how we’re delivering general policing service.

“On top of that we do have to look at saving £21m, and I can’t get around that in order to balance my budget I’ve got to look at what I can do.”

No decisions on new policing areas have been made yet, and any changes will be subject to a consultation.

Mr Campbell added: “Ironically, the five areas is the structure that we had in 2010.”

Thames Valley Police says proposals are at a very early stage.

It stated: “We are currently reviewing the structure of our force.

"We last did this 12 years ago, and since then policing has seen growing demand and a greater focus on vulnerability, prevention and digital crime.

"We also have more people living in our area than ever before, with the recent census showing a 10 per cent increase since 2011.

“Assessing our structure now will help us spot potential opportunities to drive long-term improvements for the benefit of our staff, our partners and the public.

"We are still in the early stages of this review and are currently talking to our workforce and partner organisations to get their thoughts.

"No decision has been made on any structural changes at present and we will look to share further information on the review with our communities in due course.”