SYP and Mayor Ros Jones confirm Doncaster will see more police officers by this date

Doncaster will get an increase in police officer numbers across the borough in a matter of months, South Yorkshire Police and the mayor have confirmed.
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Mayor Ros Jones, who penned a letter to Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Billings bemoaning the lack of officers in Doncaster, said more officers were on the way.

It’s not clear how many officers the city will receive but a number of PCs are currently in training and expect to be deployed to Doncaster from October.

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The mayor called out the Labour PCC and said ‘inconsistent and under-resourced level of policing’ is ‘failing residents and businesses’ in private correspondence back in August 2021.

Police officers on patrol in Doncaster city centre. George Torr/LDRSPolice officers on patrol in Doncaster city centre. George Torr/LDRS
Police officers on patrol in Doncaster city centre. George Torr/LDRS

She contacted the PCC as Government data at the time showed that Doncaster town centre had the highest amount of recorded crimes of anywhere in South Yorkshire between December 2020 and May 2021.

A month later, Mr Billings confirmed there would be a review of the numbers in Doncaster.

The resources uplift coincides with the creation of the new neighbourhood policing team which will align the neighbourhood structure with the council’s localities model, with council and SYP units sharing the same geography.

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SYP bosses said the NPTs have brought some focus to ‘speeding offences’ and have started to see some success in the town centre in their work with ‘aggressive beggars’ and antisocial behaviour in the Frenchgate Centre.

Mayor Jones said: “We’ve been working constructively with the police and we’re working well with the new district commander (Chief Sup Ian Proffitt).

“We are due to see an uplift in officer numbers in Doncaster and it will start to be seen from October.

South Yorkshire Police are also moving to four neighbourhood policing area models, which actually matches up with the council’s localities and supports greater collaboration.

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“So we need to get to October to see the uplift in the police officers but at least (the PCC) has heard and listened to what we’ve said and actually acknowledged now that Doncaster has not got the right number of police officers.

“I haven’t been given the exact number but I know this is starting to come forward. But if they’re actually coinciding with our council locality model, it will be a new team of officers.”