Star comment: Police keep the public at arm's length

You can see officers through the window as you knock on the door. Knock, knock. Nothing. Knock, knock. Nothing. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

The penny drops. You, a member of the public, one of those who, according to those slick slogans, the police exist to serve, are being ignored because you are not doing the right thing.

However hard you knock, they will not answer the door, except, perhaps, to arrest you for causing a nuisance or damaging the door.

What you are supposed to do is to use the intercom system which will put you in touch with a police telephonist scores of miles away.

People in Welshpool, where community support officers staff a police van on the Tesco car park, are not the only ones to have similar experiences.

The talk you hear from police chiefs about providing high visibility policing is rendered ludicrous when police officers are highly visible and highly inaccessible at the same time.

Recognising the mistake, the police in Welshpool will now stir themselves to answer the door. This is not some great victory. It is the application of simple courtesy in which the public are treated with respect.

Cuts and efficiency savings have seen the long arm of the law take on a new meaning, in which the public are kept at arm's length, and instead of being able to ring or call into your local police station you have to ring or visit somewhere remote. That other emergency service, Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, is also wrapped up in making cuts and efficiency savings which could see some local fire stations close, including that at Clun.

Making such cuts could potentially have consequences to human life. Not making such cuts would have consequences to our finances, potentially meaning higher taxes.

You have to wonder whether, in the future, people will look back and ask if our priorities were right.