Merger of police food for thought

There was always a certain inevitability about the decision to merge the Napier and Hastings Police into a regional operation.

We are two modestly-sized cities just 20km apart which is unique in this country.

And for many years each city rolled along relatively independently while embracing each other's attributes.

There was great ruffling of feathers of course when the decision was made to close Napier Hospital in favour of a regional one.

But that was always on the cards.

I have heard Napier people declare "they've got the hospital and they've got the paper" - the latter an angry but misguided belief that Hawke's Bay Today, because it is headquartered in Hastings, is somehow biased.

Well I've been here since day one and I'm sitting in my Napier office ... I don't think so.

Anyone possessed of such opinions should take a drive and note that Hawke's Bay's port and airport happen to be in Napier.

The cities are growing closer together on the map, and on the political landscape, and the merging of police to a regional operation of course gives further food for thought to the merging of councils into one regional unit - although in that arena such a shift can be argued and battled.

As indeed we are seeing.

Not so the police.

This was a planned and researched decision, although it won't have gone down well with some of the troops in blue, nor some of the civilian staff employed and who will find their working times and positions altered.

There was a suggestion it is all part of cost-cutting, and, yes, perhaps there are savings to be made.

But like the rest of the employment landscape, the old cloth has to be cut to suit as there is no bottomless pit of cash to provide everything we believe we should have.

Although it can be rightly argued that the big three - law and order, education and health - should have access to a deeper pit than anyone else.

The man at the helm of the Eastern Police region, Superintendent Sam Hoyle, has stressed that the front-lines of Napier and Hastings, and of the community policing stations, will stay put. They will serve their areas as they have in the past.

With the amount of staff and resources they have on deck they will do the best they can.

There has been no talk of staff, sworn or unsworn, being sent packing.

Any cost-cutting does not appear to be of the human resource kind - more the streamlining of bureaucracy.

The paperwork and even electricity bills as special units once split into two offices will now effectively operate from one.

As Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott rightly put it, these are early days and it is indeed a case of wait and see.

And I daresay the police hierarchy will be very aware that the people they serve will indeed be closely watching.