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Fleet management at West Midlands Police is coming under fire from officers for a policy that has seen a saving on 'panda cars' in order to provide higher-specification and more reliable response vehicles.
West Midlands Police Federation, which represents officers, has claimed the Vauxhall Corsas, currently used as panda cars and not equipped with 'blues and twos', mean officers can't get to crime scenes fast enough.
The federation's health and safety lead Pete Harkness said: "Officers are ordered to drive the Corsa at patrol speed and obey the rules of the road. But the absence of a siren means they often cannot get traffic to move out of their way, and this, in turn, can delay them getting to an emergency situation.
This is very frustrating for the officers and they feel they are letting the public down by not getting to them as quickly as possible in a crisis situation."
The federation claims there have been more than 100 reports in the past 12 months of police attending urgent incidents in the West Midlands in a vehicle without a siren.
However, a spokesman for West Midlands Police said: "We have always had panda cars - this isn't a new thing and they've blown it out of proportion."
The force currently has 109 Vauxhall Corsas within its 1540-strong fleet of vehicles, and these are equipped with blue lights but not sirens.
"The lower-specification (and consequently lower cost) Corsa was chosen to enable the force to buy the higher-cost Vauxhall Insignias as 'response' vehicles. Previously, Astras were incurring considerable costs to the force due to continued clutch issues, [as a consequence of] the amount of use. The Insignias are automatic and therefore that issue was eradicated," said the spokesman.
"The Corsas were provided for local neighbourhood teams and are used for a police presence - conducting patrols, attending appointments with victims of crime, and at scenes of crime or traffic collisions to enforce road closures. At no point were they intended for response work as they are low-performance vehicles.
"Incidents graded as 'immediate' are responded to as soon as possible, usually a matter of minutes, and on many occasions require the use of lights and sirens."
The spokesman added that the force did not intend to change its fleet policy as a result of the federation's claims.
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