Written evidence from South Wales Police
is printed on Page Ev 226
Examination of Witnesses (Questions 97-99)
27 OCTOBER 2004
Chief Constable Barbara Wilding, and Mr Paul Wade
Q97 Chairman: Welcome to the Chief Constable
and colleagues before the Committee. I want to thank you for a
very detailed and informative brief in which you have addressed
all the concern the Committee are looking at currently. It is
very kind of you to come. I am sorry about the delay in starting;
it is almost inevitable that the private session takes longer
than it should. Could you perhaps briefly introduce yourself and
your colleagues for the purposes of the record, please?
Chief Constable Wilding: Yes,
of course. Barbara Wilding, Chief Constable of South Wales Police;
on my right is Mr David Francis, who is the Assistant Chief Constable
responsible for community and partnership, and on my left is Mr
Wade, who is the Director of Admin, Finance and IT. Behind me
is Chief Superintendent Geoff Cooksly, who is in charge of corporate
development, my staff officer, Chief Inspector Matthias, and Phillipa
Merritt, who was here last week, I understand. I do not understand;
I know she was.
Q98 Chairman: One is prompted to ask:
who is looking after the shop?
Chief Constable Wilding: I was
thinking that myself actually!
Q99 Chairman: What are the special issues
involved in policing that you have such a diverse area? There
must be special issues for your area. Could you perhaps outline
some?
Chief Constable Wilding: Yes,
of course. The policing challenges of South Wales are quite complex
and, as you quite rightly say, they are diverse. They range from
policing a capital city that sees every weekend an extra 60,000
people coming into the capital city, mainly to enjoy the entertainment
and the licensing trade of the city, the cafe society, to policing
the millennium stadium, where we are still seeing the Wembley
events, and that has certain pressures, of course. We have some
games where we can manage just with the local officers policing
it and others, such as the FA Cup, where we have to ask for mutual
aid from other forces. In fact, on the FA Cup this year we deployed
901 officers. Moving on to its airport, it has got the fastest
growing airport in the United Kingdom. Cardiff University and
Swansea University have a population together which is larger
than many towns in Wales. We then move along from the old mining
areas to areas of manufacture, along the coast and into the towns,
and it comes obviously down to the Gower. Also, of course, we
have the ferry port at Swansea which has a very strong connection
with Ireland. We have also flights coming into South Wales from
Ireland, so we cannot ever forget very much about Irish terrorism.
Looking at international terrorism, Cardiff is on the international
map because, through its sporting events, it is internationally
seen. We know—it is a fact—that they are a vulnerability,
events where large numbers of people gather, and so we have to
police these issues not just as public order but also potentially
to deal with terrorism as well. If we move up into the valleys
you will know that in the force area we have 44 of the 100 Community
First areas in Wales, highly deprived areas, where we are on second
and third generation of families not working and, indeed, third
generation of single parents as well. There is not, though there
are quite depressed areas . . . Clearly, with the title "Community
First", they are depressed areas and therefore they have
become a natural attraction for drugs, local drugs, suppliers
coming in from all over Bristol, Liverpool, London, moving into
the area. So we have local drugs activity and we have the supply
side, the high level side. Where you have that you have the potential
also for organised crime, and there is a footprint in South Wales
for organised crime. Our role is clearly to stop it getting any
bigger and to eradicate it. That is a quick overview of the complexities
of policing there.
Chairman: A very good overview it was.
Mrs Williams.
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