Rural officers took a specially created two day advanced driving course last week.

Northumbria has equipped their officers with additional specialist roads policing training. 

The two day course, provided by experienced Motor Patrols officers from the force, focussed on enhancing rural officers’ skills and knowledge around attending to and responding to collisions as well as sharpening disruption techniques to target travelling criminals. 

Superintendent Sam Rennison, of Northumbria’s Northern Area Command, explained that rural Northumberland is a vast area meaning that law breakers need to use rural roads to “move around our region with ease”. 

It makes it important for officers to receive “advanced specialist training” when they are covering the hardest journeys within the force area. 

“It’s so important to us that we offer an outstanding service to every community and that’s why it’s essential we recognise that each neighbourhood has different policing needs and challenges,” she added. 

“Investing in our cops and staff is the best investment we can possibly make.”

The training forms part of a longer programme of investment in the skills of rural officers over the coming weeks and months.