Changes to prisoner transportation

As part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring that Wiltshire Police operates as efficiently as possible whilst improving service delivery to the public, a review has been conducted of functions of the Prisoner Transport Team (PTT).

Wiltshire Police has significantly strengthened its frontline policing resources, including increased officers and fleet, in addition to reopening Melksham Custody Suite.

As a result, the need to have a dedicated PTT has been negated, and the decision has been made to disband the team – which consists of 8 members of police staff.

The PTT was established in 2014 following the closure of the Salisbury custody suite to support in ensuring that prisoners were conveyed to custody without impacting on the availability of officers in the South of the County to respond to crimes and incidents.

We now have more police officers in place than at any time in the past 10 years, we have reestablished dedicated Neighbourhood Policing Teams and have provided more resilience to our Response Policing Teams. Additionally, the increased use of mobile police stations means that we can continue to increase visibility in our communities.

We are confident that the removal of the PTT will have minimal impacts on the visibility of our officers within our communities and our focus remains on keeping our communities safe. We will continue to monitor our service delivery performance, including areas such as arrest rates, to ensure that we maintain high levels of service to our communities in the south of the county.