By Chief Inspector Neil Mitchell, local police commander

IN MY last few columns and on social media I have rightly focussed on Covid-19 to try and provide some guidance and reassurance. The guidance across the UK is slightly different and there has been much debate and interpretation of this. For East Lothian, nothing has changed from last week other than the Scottish Government has relaxed the restriction on exercise. The message is still the same: stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.

I wanted to focus today’s column on how we continue to provide the best possible service to the public, keeping policing as normal as possible and to update you on some of the policing activity since the lockdown began.

We prioritise all calls made to our 101 and 999 systems. Our new resolution team, based at Bilston, assesses each call based on the threat, risk and harm presented and, at this stage, many of the calls are dealt with over the phone or an appointment is made for police to attend. What this does is free up valuable time for my officers to deal with more community-based issues. We will always attend calls that require an immediate police response.

With the introduction of the resolution team and with national assistance, we have been able to deploy more officers across the county to deal with local complaints.

Away from Covid-19, we have been focusing our efforts on our local priorities and to keeping people safe. I have significantly increased vehicle speed checks on the county’s roads in response to complaints of speeding now the roads are quieter. This has resulted in a rise in detected offences such as drink driving, speeding and other road traffic offences.

We have continued our efforts in tracing and apprehending offenders wanted for serious and violent crimes, who have in turn attended court.

We have searched numerous houses and vehicles, removing harmful illegal substances from our communities and arresting and charging those involved. We have traced and arrested offenders who have broken into houses, sheds and cars and even rescued some adorable puppies along the way. Policing East Lothian will continue despite Covid-19.

Since lockdown, my officers, working alongside national resources and partner agencies, have worked hard to achieve some significant results.

This includes recovering £180,000 in cannabis, £16,000 of heroin and £18,500 of cocaine as well as large amounts of cash.

A group of criminals were also traced in Fife and charged following a spate of hare-coursing incidents in East Lothian.

And a male was arrested and charged with eight break-ins and another charged with numerous thefts including that of charity tins. A female was arrested and charged for despicable distraction thefts from elderly residents and a huge amount of effort has gone in to provide reassurance and support to our communities.

Whilst we will continue to respond appropriately to Covid-19 related calls, rest assured that there are officers patrolling the streets of the county 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ready to be there for you should you need us. Please continue to call us on 101 or 999 in an emergency.