GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson says improvements are being made

Greater Manchester Police Force was placed in special measures in 2020.

And last year the new Chief Constable Stephen Watston vowed to improve the force within a year when accepting his post in September of last year.

Mr Watson said the 'green shoots improvement are coming into fruition' with 'back to basic policing'.

CC Stephen Watson

The police chief reopened the 18 cell custody suite at Bolton police station as one of his first actions, which he says has made a difference.

Mr Watson said: "As part of my commitment to investigate and solve crime, I also pledged to doubling the number of arrests made and as of May 2022 figures show our arrest number is 61per cent higher than of May 2021 – the highest they have been for two years.

"To better accommodate this and the criminal justice process, we have reopened the 18-cell Bolton custody suite which is now used full-time to increase capacity, and in support of our renewed focus on arresting offenders and investigating crime, an additional 28 custody sergeants have been recruited.

Police in Victoria Square, Bolton

"Plans to refurbish other custody suites and uplift criminal justice units are well underway."

Call response times are also said to have improved.

The police chief said: "One of the very first things I committed to the public was to ensure when they called GMP in their time of need we would answer quickly and seek to get them the appropriate response as swiftly as reasonably possible.

"I am pleased to say that we are seeing increasingly improved call answer times, with the average call answer time for 999 calls in June at 29 seconds, which is down from one minute and 6 seconds in June 2021.

"We’re also seeing a positive trend in the 101 call answering time, reduced to four minutes and 19 seconds in June 2022, which is faster than its peak of six minutes 44 seconds in July 2021."

He added: “This goes hand in glove with our response to incidents, and I can confirm that response times for grade one calls have reduced since the peak times we were seeing in September last year.

"Our average response time to Grade One incidents in June was 10 minutes and 12 seconds, almost five minutes under the 15 minute target."

Mr Watson said that in May 1,000 more crimes were solved than in May 2021 -  an increase of 46 per cent.

And that officers are delivering on the commitment to attend every burglary with attendance at 94 per cent.

Mr Watson said: "Whilst this activity shows we are going back to basics and getting the policing approach right, we are not resting on our laurels and we continue to hit the criminals where it hurts – in their wallets."

He added: " We are making excellent progress in our transition to the resurgent GMP, and it is thanks to our committed officers and staff who are determined to stay the course until we deliver what our public rightly expects of us, and that I am confident we will reach our latent potential.

!GMP is a force to be reckoned with, and we have positively embarked on the process of becoming the force Greater Manchester deserves."