Slow emergency response times and lack of night-time police cover on the Rosneath Peninsula were highlighted this week.
Cove and Kilcreggan Community Council heard that it took 29 minutes for a Police Scotland car to arrive on a ‘blue light’ call to a disturbance in Kilcreggan last month.
“I can drive round from Helensburgh in 29 minutes, keeping to the speed limit!” said community councillor Derek Fowlis.
“When do you actually see the police on the peninsula? We see a police car at 10am, but at 10pm? Very rarely.”
He added that Police Scotland were very short-staffed and low morale was reflected in the number of officers transferring to the Ministry of Defence Police.
Police have not attended the monthly community council meetings all year, and chairman Nick Davies said he had taken the issue up with inspector Colleen Wylie.
Over the last month there was a theft from a purse in pub in Shore Road, Kilcreggan, a sign at Kilcreggan Primary School was vandalised and a house in Meikle Aiden Brae was broken into, with jewellery being taken.
Mr Davies said CID were investigating the break-in, adding: “That is the first burglary that I heard of in Cove and Kilcreggan for quite a long while.”
Argyll and Bute Councillor George Freeman said there had been other break-ins in the wider area recently: “We were told that there are some people who have been travelling around the area and who are from outside Scotland.”
He said rural police stations had been closed down over the last 15 years, leaving just Garelochhead and Helensburgh with police offices – but then the Garelochhead office was downgraded.
“They still have the Garelochhead office but there is nobody based in it at all – they are based in Helensburgh,” he said
“Over the last 15 years the police service has got poorer and poorer.”
Mr Davies said he would write to Insp Wylie highlighting these issues. ‘and saying it would be nice to see an occasional patrol out here, particularly after dark and particularly after the burglary’.
He will also suggest that greater use is made of Ministry of Defence Police.
You can ask for the MOD police as much as you like, they don’t have jurisdiction to deal with the majority of normal policing duties or road traffic offences
I thought there was a Rural Watch thing that was meant to be all about making the two forces work together
MOD police can deal with offences outside of their jurisdiction, just needs agreement with Police Scotland to do so. In these trying times and major cuts I’m sure a mutual working agreement could be arranged!