NEW police inspector Nick Mawson caused a stir with councillors when he revealed there would be a new style of policing in Marlborough and Pewsey.

He announced at the Pewsey Area Board on Monday that Wiltshire Police had adopted a new control strategy, which will see officers prioritising cybercrime over things such as house burglaries.

Reports of domestic abuse, dangerous drug networks, organised crime, as well as child sexual abuse will be dealt with first before more low-level offences.

However councillor Stuart Wheeler, who represents Burbage and the Bedwyns, raised concerns that the low-level crime is more rife in the Pewsey area such as thefts and was not sure how this would affect how crime is dealt with in the village.

“It seems to be an essentially urban model,” coun Wheeler said. “The big issues in this area are non-dwelling burglaries and high-value farm equipment being targeted and stolen, and hare coursing.

“What we are looking at in the Pewsey area is essentially an urban laid out strategy and I am very disappointed. We used to get these reports saying ‘non-dwelling burglaries clear-up rate nil’ and I am looking at farmers losing £5,000 or £6,000 worth of a 4x4.”

But, Insp Mawson said the crimes would still be targeted but they are now focusing on high risk offenders who commit them.

He also revealed that a community team operating model, which is being piloted in other areas of the county, will be rolled out into Pewsey, Marlborough and Devizes but no firm plans had been finalised.

It will see neighbourhood policing teams, response teams, crime investigators as well as call takers merge together.

Insp Mawson added: “The changes that you will see, hopefully, is more police officers because you will have officers 24/7 that will be designated to cover Pewsey as they will the other areas.

"At the moment Pewsey and Marlborough are mostly covered in terms of 999 policing from Swindon, that now will not be the case and our response team will be based much more locally, so you should see a better response time to local crime.

“We have less officers now than we used to unfortunately, it is not just Pewsey but that is the case for every neighbourhood policing area, so we have to do things differently and the policing pilot is one of those things.”

Pewsey Vale councillor Paul Oatway said: “I do not think we should shoot the messenger. I think as a community we should understand all of our central services have got to cut their cloth accordingly and manage with the resources they have got.

“We should forget that we do live in a safe area, Wiltshire is a safe county.”