By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
Gloucestershire will lose its own police horse unit as the constabulary aims to make budget savings over the next year.
Gloucestershire Constabulary will transfer its mounted unit to West Midlands Police in a bid to help plug the £12.3m funding gap it faces over the next year.
The police officers, who patrol on horseback, were used for various events in the county such as Cheltenham Festival and for community engagement.
But the force will transfer the mounted unit as part of its wider cost saving plans which will also see 60 police staff made redundant over the next year.
Under the plans, county’s mounted officers will be redeployed elsewhere in the constabulary.
Temporary Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said the mounted capability is a fantastic asset. But unfortunately only a handful of forces can afford to have them.
“The horses are a fantastic resource to have,” she said. “Out of 43 police forces across the country, only a handful can afford to have a mounted capability, so it tends to be the larger metropolitan forces that have them.
“The arrangement we have with West Midlands is we can have them back and use them when we need to.
“So for example, the Cheltenham races for any big event where we want that specialist capability like any.
“We can have an arrangement to use them where we need to, but as a small force we just can’t resource what is a brilliant capability, but we can’t afford to maintain that.”
She said the force has to make tough decisions and needs to prioritise other teams.
“We’ve got gaps in the number of detectives we have to investigate crime,” she said.
“We’ve got increasing crime coming in online through areas like domestic abuse, we need to have detectives in those areas investigating those crimes properly and weighing that up against keeping a resource like the mounted. Those are the sorts of decisions we’ve been having to make.”
The constabulary will be looking at a variety of commercial opportunities in how they use the stables at Bamfurlong.
The police base near the M5 underwent a £12m revamp in 2022 which included new stables and three paddocks for the mounted section’s horses.
“We’re looking at a variety of commercial opportunities with the police and crime commissioner’s office on that, and there’s a number of options available. But the welfare of the horses is now paramount,” Ms Blyth said.
“There will be individual assessments on each horse in conjunction with West Midlands Police, and we’ll manage that accordingly, so they won’t be disappearing. That’s got to be managed properly.
“We care about our horses. We keep them in fantastic surroundings, and we need to make sure that where they’re going is thought through.”