· A million pounds spent on policing to December
· Protests for and against cost police £685,000
· Crime panel: “Government must fully reimburse Dyfed-Powys Police for all costs”
· Home Office: “We have already agreed to provide £2.5million”

POLICING Penally camp has cost more than a million pounds and taken up more than 8,000 policing hours in the first six weeks after it was opened.

Housing asylum seekers in Pembrokeshire have placed a “significant financial burden” on Dyfed-Powys Police, the force’s Police and Crime Panel have said.
Between September 25 and November 11, more than 1,000 officers were called to attend the asylum camp in the village of Penally on the outskirts of Tenby.

ONE MILLION SPENT

At the panel, chairman Alun Lloyd-Jones said policing the Penally camp involved 13,919 hours of officer time, including 9,681 overtime at a cost of £297,000, up to the end of December.

The total costs of policing protests at the camp were £685,000, the panel said, totalling just short of a million pounds at £982,000.

Obviously, with costs this year well over a million pounds has been spent – mostly in overtime payments.

The panel is calling on the UK Government department to reimburse the force for the additional costs.

Police and Crime Commissioner for Dyfed-Powys Police Dafydd Llywelyn said he wanted additional funding from the Home Office to support local resources that have been put under pressure as a result of the decision to utilise the camp as an asylum centre.

Last month there were two protests by the asylum seekers themselves in Tenby over conditions. Mr Llywelyn said: “I’m aware that police were in attendance during protests that have taken place this week, and I was pleased to hear that the protests were peaceful with no disorder reported.

“These are extremely difficult times for all of us. I have seen first-hand the difficult circumstances encountered by individuals that are residing at the centre and I have met with the Chief Inspector of Asylum and Immigration who gave me assurances about an independent inspection that will take place in the near future.

“However, now is not the time to be gathering to hold protests, and I can understand the frustrations of the local communities when observing such activities.

“Officers will and have been acting accordingly when Covid-19 regulations are breached, and I’m reassured that the Force have been liaising with the site management team to educate them of the Force’s four E principles’ approach – engage, explain, encourage and enforce.

“In the meantime, we remain in regular contact with local partners and service providers, monitoring all situations around the facility,”

The Penally training camp began to house up to 250 asylum seekers in September, including men from Iraq, Iran and Syria.

As the Herald has extensively covered, it has attracted multiple protests – some by far-right groups and some by concerned locals.

There have also been other protests in support of the asylum seekers, and some from asylum seekers themselves protesting against the conditions in the camp.

SPECIAL FUNDING INSUFFICIENT

The panel states that under Home Office police funding rules special grants can be given to cover additional pressures, but only if the total cost of these pressures exceeds 1% of the force’s net revenue expenditure for the year.

According to the Dyfed Powys Police and Crime Panel, this would mean it would not be able to claim any additional grants from the Home Office to cover costs unless extra costs exceeded £1.129 million.

The panel said it is calling on Home Secretary Priti Patel, Policing Minister Kit Malthouse and MPs in the area – including the Welsh Secretary Simon Hart – to encourage the UK Government to fully reimburse Dyfed-Powys Police for all costs incurred in policing Penally camp – even if the costs are below this Home Office threshold.

The UK’s Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has begun an inspection of the use of hotels and army barracks as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers and is calling for evidence.

The Home Office spokesman told The Herald that it had agreed extra funding and said: “We have already agreed to provide £2.5million of Special Grant funding to Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to these costs up to September 2021.”

Dyfed Powys Police said it had a number of officers dedicated specifically to the Penally Camp to undertake regular patrols both inside the camp, around the village and to respond to calls for the camp.

These duties took up 8,264 hours of police time in the six-week period, not counting officers who have responded to incidents on occasions where the officers undertaking the Penally camp duties have not been working.

Although these officers would have been working anyway and are therefore not an “additional” cost, it does not take into account any overtime to help replace the reallocated officers.

HIGH NUMBER OF ARRESTS

A number of arrests were made in that same period as protesters gathered outside the camp during September and October calling for the camp to be closed.

In total, 13 arrests were made for offences. These included: racially aggravated Section 4 public order offences; obstructing and/or resisting a constable in execution of duty; racially or religiously aggravated intentional harassment/alarm/ distress; arson; use of threatening abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent or likely to stir up racial hatred, affray; and actual bodily harm.

The force would not divulge how many of those arrests involved protesters and how many were men living inside the camp.

The operational demands were originally thought to be in the region of £3 million but have since been projected to cost Dyfed-Powys Police in the region of £1.2m as lockdown has forced protesters away.

In a report at a recent finance meeting Dafydd Llywelyn, the police and crime commissioner, wrote that he had estimated operational costs for policing the camp to be around £1.2m for the year.