Police have admitted they are taking longer to answer phone calls, following a switch to only one control room for the whole of North Yorkshire.

Superintendent Glyn Payne, the officer in charge of the York control room, said it was impossible to make such a major change without temporarily affecting the speed of response to calls.

And UNISON branch secretary John Mackfall claimed staff were facing a heavy burden of work following the change and morale was low.

The difficulties emerged after figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed the average time taken to respond to the non-emergency number has risen over the past year from six to nine seconds, while the response time for 999 calls had risen from four to five seconds.

Supt Payne said such times were well within the national targets of 30 seconds for non-urgent calls and ten seconds for emergencies.

But he admitted there had been “one or two” complaints from the public since the force’s Newby Wiske control room closed down recently.

He said while about 60 employees relocated to the York room, new staff had to be recruited from elsewhere within the force and externally, all of whom needed training.

He said: “We would ask people to bear with us during this transition.”

Supt Payne also advised people raising non-urgent matters to avoid calling first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon, which were generally the busiest times, but call instead in the late morning or early afternoon.

He also revealed “irresponsible” 999 calls had been hampering employees’ ability to respond swiftly to genuine emergencies, with examples including people dialling 999 to:

  • report they have lost a glove
  • ask when a supermarket near the police station shuts
  • request a patrol car to take them home because their taxi queue was too long

He said: “While people are making these calls, there could be someone else out there wanting to report a genuine emergency.”

He warned people making such calls could be taken to court for making malicious communications.

He said problems should ease when voice-recognition technology is introduced later this year, allowing callers to be automatically re-directed to whoever they want to speak to.

But Mr Mackfall said this should have been introduced before the changes came in.