SKIPTON Police Station is safe and will not close, according to Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan.

Plans to stop using the cells at the station, taking prisoners instead to Harrogate, will also not result in a quieter Skipton Magistrates Court, she stressed.

Last week, Mrs Mulligan and North Yorkshire Police unveiled a far reaching review of policing in the county - including the loss of the Skipton custody suite and the review of some senior posts.

The closing of the cells will mean arresting officers taking people to Harrogate, or possibly across the border to Lancashire, and will mean those deemed able enough being left to find their own way home.

It is planned that three of the five sergeants currently in charge of the custody suite on a shift basis, will be re-deployed to an expanded focus on rural crime.

Mrs Mulligan told the Herald she was responding to calls from the public for more officers on the beat. and with a limited budget was looking to make better use of officers' time.

She also stressed, there was no threat to the police station itself and that people who committed crimes in Craven would continue to be dealt with at Skipton Magistrates Court.

The police and the crime commissioner are now taking their proposals out to communities, but it is planned they will be implemented in a phased approach between now and 2016.

For more information about the Operational Policing Model, visit the police website northyorkshire.police.uk/OPM.

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