Five police station front desks across Merseyside have been saved after a “furore” over their possible closure.
Seven of Merseyside’s 12 general enquiries offices (GEOs), where the public can speak to officers without an appointment, had been listed for closure in January.
But Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Kennedy told the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel on Thursday that this number had been reduced to just two following what she called “an entirely understandable furore”.
The planned closures were driven by low demand for front desk services, with some dealing with just one person an hour, as well as staffing shortages that saw police officers diverted from response duties to man underused GEOs.
At Newton-Le-Willows, for example, the front desk saw fewer than five visits a day, although the GEO in St Anne Street received 35 visits per day.
Asked about the possibility of moving Kirkby's front desk to the council's one-stop shop instead of closing it, Ms Kennedy told the panel she had also “absolutely refused” a proposal to co-locate police front desks with other public services.
She said: “It would mean the Kirkby police station as you know it would close to the public.
“The force want to do it, they think it would have benefits to them, but I’m uneasy about it.
“I feel it’s a bit of a step back from what I want to see as an accessible and visible police presence.”
Previously, Merseyside had 34 GEOs, but this was slashed to the current 12 in 2012 as part of a cost-cutting measure.
According to a report prepared for the police and crime panel, Merseyside’s chief constable Andy Cook had been “clear that the use of police officers to cover GEO staff shortfalls must stop as emergency response teams were depleted”.
Under the revised plans revealed on Wednesday, only the front desks at Speke and Walton Lane police stations will close, although both will remain operational police stations.
Each borough will keep two GEOs, but opening hours will be changed again, with each borough having one GEO open six days a week and another open only four days a week.
At the moment, GEOs are open either six or five days a week.
Community police stations will open in Halewood and at the Sir Alfred Jones Memorial Hospital in Garston to provide a contact point for the public to replace the Speke and Walton Lane GEOs.
But Cllr John Sayers of Sefton Council said these were “not the solution that people think”.
He said: “Community police stations are a sticking plaster.
“There’s simply not sufficient police officers to crew and run those community police stations the way the public think they should be run."
