Police

Police are appealing for witnesses following an RTC in Southport involving a bus and a pedestrian.

Officers were called shortly before 5pm yesterday afternoon (February 27) to reports that a collision had taken place involving a bus and a pedestrian.

The pedestrian, a woman in her 40s has been taken to hospital. The extent of her injuries are unknown at this time.

Anyone that witnessed the collision is asked to DM @MerPolCC quoting ref: 715 of 27/2/19.

Merseyside Police will be recruiting an additional 80 new police officers and 14 police staff and will be able to stem the loss of approximately 40 officer posts to invest in more police on the streets of Merseyside over the next year.

This means that the force will be able to invest in the creation of a new team to target wanted fugitives and the introduction of a new Cyber Investigations Unit.

The force budget was announced last week at a special public meeting held by Merseyside’s Police Commissioner Jane Kennedy and Chief Constable Andy Cooke.

Funding for 40 of the new officer posts has been generated from the increase of the police precept on council tax, following a public consultation held by the Commissioner. Savings that the force has identified throughout the last year, have also generated funding for a further 40 officers and will save approximately 40 police officer posts that were due to be lost.

The force will also bring in an extra 14 police staff in 2019/20.

The new and saved posts will increase capacity on the front line and create dedicated teams of officers and staff to target those who cause the most harm to the communities of Merseyside.

In the last year Merseyside has seen an increase in knife crime, violence and robbery, and the force is still managing the threat that serious organised crime, which includes gun and drug related crime, brings to communities. We want to ensure that we have the capacity to respond to these incidents and put those involved in this type of criminality on the back foot.

To do that we are now in the position to create a Priority Crime Team within Matrix disruption. The sole aim of that team will be to transfer the fear of crime back on to the criminal through targeted, proactive policing.

A centralised Fugitive Team will also be set up to track and arrest wanted criminals and bring them to justice. The team will find those wanted on arrest warrants and who have breached licences and will support the force’s local policing and targeted teams to locate suspects who commit crime in our communities.