Lincolnsire Police's Chief Constable prepares for a new life after 31 years in policing

Bill Skelly will leave Lincolnshire Police headquarters for the very last time as Chief Constable in a matter of days.

Thoughts of hare coursing, street drinking, illegal raves and shop break-ins, all of which have occurred in South Holland during Mr Skelly's near four-year spell as the county's most senior police officer, will be someone else's priority.

As will the challenge of managing a £100million budget, based on 2020-21 council tax figures, during the national public health emergency that is coronavirus.

Mr Skelly said: "This has been an extraordinary year for everyone and we will, I suspect as people and as communities, reflect back on 2020 as a year we would rather forget.

"As a chief police officer, I faced two major issues, the first being how will I maintain policing during the course of the pandemic?

"The projected health risks to police officers and police staff were such that we would see significant reduction in staff as people would be simply be off sick or would have to isolate because a family member or colleague was unwell.

"But the experience has been one where we've managed things well.

"The second major challenge was whether the communities of Lincolnshire would comply with the directions being given or whether we would see non-compliance and the need to take lots of enforcement action.

"I am delighted to say that the public of Lincolnshire played their part and while we had isolated incidents where people just simply refused to take the advice that was given, we never the saw the levels of non-compliance that some other areas did.

"We will be in Tier 3 from December 3 onwards and that will be a real challenge for people, particularly those in the hospitality sector who were desperate to see some sort of recovery before Christmas.

"But if we can keep the perseverance going for just a little bit longer, we'll come out of this and be a much stronger community as a result."

The Chief Constable reflects in everyday policing issues

Even with coronavirus, the work of policing crime has gone on as usual, not least in trying to build on a 56 per cent drop in hare coursing incidents between 2016 and 2019.

Mr Skelly said: "One of the first things I was made very aware of when I took up the post was that rural communities felt they had not been receiving the service from the police they had expected and needed.

"The farming community made it very clear that hare coursing, it was affecting their own health and the livelihoods of their families that in many cases had been there for generations.

"So I consider it a real success that we managed to turn the relationship around and we are now very supported, and supportive of, the rural and farming community, particularly in the South Holland area.

"There is barely a day that goes by where I haven't seen that there have been vehicles seized, dogs seized and people arrested.

"I do believe we are in a much better position and a much better place than we were four years ago."

One challenge facing Mr Skelly's successor is to tackle a trend towards commercial burglaries which saw seven separate incidents reported in Spalding over a nine-week period.

"Operation Historic was put together in a response to the spate of burglaries and a number of different activities, both plain clothes and uniformed, have been taking place," Mr Skelly said.

"One of the tactics officers have been using are the stop and search powers and as a result of those tactics, three people were arrested in Spalding.

"So we recognise there has been a problem and the local team has worked together with other parts of the organisation to try and get on top of it.

"That will continue until we manage to get on top of this issue."

Mr Skelly expressed sympathy for communities blighted by fly-tipping, resulting in an 83 per cent rise in reports across South Holland between April and October, compared to the same seven months last year.

He said: "We do our level best to work together with local authorities and the Environment Agency on issues of fly-tipping because this is not a trivial issue.

"Because it's so visible, it assaults our values and our own sense of decency as law-abiding citizens who go to great lengths to comply with the disposal of our rubbish.

"So when you see an incident of fly-tipping, that is somebody who does not care for our environment and does not care for the values that we have."

Another legacy Mr Skelly will be leaving to his successor is the means to make the roads of towns and villages safer across South Holland, primarily through Community Speed Watch.

"We put together a particular group of Special Constabulary officers who took on the role of roads policing enforcement, increasing our capacity as a police service to deal with speeding offences.

"We also looked at reinvigorating Community Speed Watch (CSW), providing additional support to people in being able to gather information on speeding within their local parish, then sending out warning letters.

"Then we've training our PCSOs in the use of the hand-held speed guns, giving them the opportunity to carry out enforcement action, adding a bit of teeth to the CSW activity.

"These are issues that the local policing teams do their best to address, with the resources they have.

"I really believe that what makes Lincolnshire such a good place in terms of its community, and how strong those communities are, are the things that we need to preserve and we as the police service have a big role to play in that."