AS a retired Gloucestershire police officer, no-one bemoans the loss of community policing, visible patrolling officers and local police stations more than I do. 

However, I must take issue with Mr Horsfield’s suggestion that the police service should be a national one. 

The result of this would be that officers would be deployed to the busiest areas, and for officers in Gloucestershire this would probably mean Bristol.   

There would be a complete loss of local knowledge – there’s little enough now – and local intelligence would be non-existent. 

Local accountability would also be lost and a small and relatively peaceful county such as Gloucestershire would be very low priority and the Forest of Dean would not even be on the list.   

As an indication of how things have changed, when I was a young PC in the 70s in Gloucester we would parade an inspector, three sergeants and up to 20 PCs at Bearland, for each shift, 24 hours per day. Bearlands was also open to the public 24 hours per day,   

In addition there was a panda car covering each of the suburbs plus area constables working their local areas from 8am to midnight. 

Now you would be lucky to find a PCSO in the city and the station is only open in the day time. 

As with all public services, what is needed is proper funding and a recognition by government that although things can always be improved, in the interests of public safety and security there are some services that should be protected.   

Once it’s gone, it’s gone and a national police service is not the way forward.

– David Kelly, Whitecroft.