Vic: Fewer officers on Melbourne's Saturday night beat

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2009
Vic: Fewer officers on Melbourne's Saturday night beat

MELBOURNE, July 31 AAP - Fewer officers will patrol Melbourne's busy Saturday night
beat after a five-month policing trial came to an end.

Weekends in Central Melbourne will now be patrolled by about 100 fewer officers despite
an increase in the number of reported assaults.

The Victoria Police Safe Streets taskforce - launched in October 2007 - will be continuing
with fewer officers as members are shuffled back to the city's rail network and in inner
suburban areas.

Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe says the CBD is at the point where it's probably
"over-policed".

"It was always going to be a four to five months strategy just to see what the impacts
would be," he said.

Police Association secretary Greg Davies says the taskforce trial was never going to
be sustainable since the force did not have the numbers or the funding to maintain the
extra officers in peak times.

"They were coming from suburban stations and country towns close to Melbourne to prop
up the CBD but the money just ran out," Mr Davies told AAP.

Opposition police spokesman Andrew McIntosh says the extra officers who worked overtime
shifts during the trial should become permanent members of the taskforce.

AAP sbl/cdh

KEYWORD: POLICE VIC AM UPDATE

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