A year after joining Durham Constabulary, Chief Constable Rachel Bacon reflects on a turbulent 12 months for policing and her vision for the future of the force.

The violent disorder which played out on our streets over the summer months was one of the most challenging periods British policing has faced in recent years.

Durham officers were on the frontline, restoring order quickly and firmly when violence flared in Darlington and preventing planned disorder in Durham and Bishop Auckland through early intervention, as well as supporting colleagues at flashpoints across the country.

They were difficult days and several of our officers were injured while simply doing their job to protect our communities. Thankfully, none suffered really serious injuries, but we don’t yet know the long-term effect on those officers, many of whom are in the first few years of service.

However, it very quickly became evident that the overwhelming majority of people were appalled by what they were seeing on our streets and supported police efforts to maintain law and order. We received countless calls into the Force Control Room offering information and asking advice; our officers on the ground were regularly thanked by members of the public who were grateful we were doing all we could to protect them.

Those intent on violence were a tiny and unrepresentative minority. Our communities came together in favour of cohesion.

The public were crystal clear: they want law and order on our streets, not just as an immediate response to the disgraceful disorder seen over the summer - they want us to be doing everything we can to effectively tackle crime and antisocial behaviour every day.

(Image: Tom Banks)

Durham has such a unique policing culture: it is a privilege to lead and an amazing place to work. We consistently remain one of the top-performing police forces in the UK, delivering an outstanding level of service to our communities.

In my first week as Chief Constable of Durham, I visited Crook to meet local residents and hear about the brilliant work of the Neighbourhood Policing Team who had reduced antisocial behaviour in the town centre through a mixture of traditional beat policing and innovative tactics.

That same approach has since been adopted across the force. Under Operation Trailblazer, we have identified 34 antisocial behaviour hotspots across County Durham and Darlington which have been targeted for 7,000 extra hours of patrols – leading to a 13 per cent fall in reported incidents in those areas over the last year to August.

We have been able to put an extra 12 officers and 16 PCSOs into our neighbourhood teams, the officers who best understand our local communities and have their ear closest to the ground, with a further 16 PCSOs joining them this month.

We have worked with our local authority partners to deliver a long-awaited Public Space Protection Order for Durham, helping us tackle nuisance begging and substance abuse on the city’s streets where we were responding to more than 100 incidents per month.

We have made significant investment in the force control room, including extra call handlers and technology, which will reduce the time it takes to answer 101 and 999 calls so we can improve the service we offer the public.

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All of these measures are driving down crime and antisocial behaviour. They won’t work overnight, but they do signal our intent and I am confident that they will yield results in the long term.

In the last few weeks, I have published my new Three-Year Delivery Plan, which brings many of those ideas into the same place. We have re-examined our priorities and devised a refreshed and simpler plan to deliver trust and confidence: By relentlessly pursuing criminals By providing a first-class service to victims By being determined to protect vulnerable people By being the best at preventing crime and antisocial behaviour That plan is now being delivered by every single officer in Durham Constabulary.

It will be a challenge to translate that plan into the meaningful action needed to make a real difference, but as has been repeatedly proven over the last year – Durham Constabulary’s officers are up to the challenge.