BRIGG POLICE STATION IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC MORE HOURS THAN YOU MIGHT THINK EVERY WEEK

Long-serving member of Brigg Town Council, Coun Ann Eardley, raised the issue of public opening hours at the police station on Barnard Avenue.
The former Town Mayor did so during the latest monthly meeting of the authority, suggesting the facility was not open for certain periods some afternoons.
She requested the opening hours might be clarified.
Brigg Blog went down to take a look and was pleased to find a sign displayed on the door giving the opening hours of the 'front counter' service.
However, the list does support Coun Eardley's point.
On Monday, opening hours are noon to 8pm, but the office is closed between 4pm and 5pm.
The office is shut throughout Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.
It opens between 10am and 6pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays but is closed for an hour from 2pm to 3pm.
The police station is open for business on Saturdays, from 9am to 5pm, but again there's a short break in the afternoon.
Few Brigg residents, we suggest, know  the station is open AT ALL to the public, and certainly not for so many hours each week. But clearly there are gaps.
Local folk needing to report an incident when the Brigg police station front counter is not open to the public are asked to telephone 101 and give details to Humberside Police.
Brigg Blog well remembers the early 1980s when we visited the police station counter often on weekday mornings and Saturdays to see whether there was any news to hand for the Lincolnshire & South Humberside Times - based  just a short walking distance away at 57 Wrawby Street.
Most crimes were of a minor nature and dealt with by front office staff (constable or civilian).
You knew something more serious had happened if a sergeant came to the glass window.
If you were invited in to speak to an inspector or even Chief Insp Bill Horsfield himself, it was going to be a story for the front page.
Bill was head of the Brigg & Barton sub-division of Humberside Police in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
The value of  police stations being open to the public was demonstrated recently when  a purse or small handbag, containing more than £200, was   "lost" in or near the Market Place. An honest soul found the bag of cash and handed it in.

PICTURED: The 'front counter' at Brigg police station in September 2011. Image by Ken Harrison, Brigg Matters Magazine.