MORE police officers will be walking the beat in a new shake-up of policing.
Gloucestershire police is restructuring its front-line policing to ensure funding cuts "don't have a negative impact on our neighbourhoods."
The Tewkesbury area will benefit from new senior officers, as well as round-the-clock police teams, as it is split into three new local policing teams (LPTs) – Tewkesbury with Coombe Hill, Bishop's Cleeve with Winchcombe and Cheltenham Road East with Brockworth.
Each area will have its own sergeant and policing teams of about eight officers, plus about 17 PCSOs.
Superintendent Rob Priddy, who heads up the Tewkesbury team, said: "Against a national backdrop of cuts in public sector spending, we have been working hard to not only ensure that these cuts don't have a negative impact on our neighbourhoods, but that we keep finding ways to improve the service Tewkesbury residents get from us."
New superintendents have been appointed to each of the county's six local policing areas, Stroud, the Forest of Dean, Gloucester, the Cotswolds, Tewkesbury and Cheltenham.
But police have so far only revealed their revised plans for the Tewkesbury area.
They met residents and community groups to discuss the moves at a meeting in Bishop's Cleeve on Wednesday.
Inspectors Owen Hughes, Steve Templeton and Brian Murnaghan will cover the Tewkesbury area.
Officers will work a five-shift system and will operate from Tewkesbury's new police station at the Tewkesbury Borough Council office in Gloucester Road.
Inspector Murnaghan said: "It's about putting more police officers on the front line.
"Our objective is trying to get local people knowing there is a police officer they can communicate with on the ground."
Gloucestershire Constabulary will be redistributing existing police officers rather than employing additional recruits.
