North Yorkshire Police experienced a huge increase in demand during the hot and humid weekend with four days’ worth of calls taken in three days.
Despite this massive demand for assistance, the Force Control Room team maintained their excellent performance and surpassed the national target by answering between 92% and 99.90% of all 999 calls within ten seconds.
Even though Saturday was one of the busiest for several years, staff answered 99.9% of all emergency calls within ten seconds.
Over Friday 12 to Sunday 14 July 2013, the Force Control Room took 3,490 calls from the public compared to 2,767 which is the average number of calls taken over a weekend – an increase of 723 calls and the equivalent of an extra day’s worth of calls.
Superintendent Richard Anderson, who heads North Yorkshire Police’s Force Control Room, said:
This weekend has seen a huge demand for police assistance across the county in addition to the planned events such as York races and Seamer Horse Fair.
I am extremely proud of our control room staff who have shown absolute professionalism and dedication over one of the busiest weekends we have seen in a long time.
Saturday saw staff take 366 emergency calls for assistance, this is the highest number of 999 calls in one day which we have seen for several years.
Non-emergency calls to the 101 number were also up with 933 calls taken on Friday and 909 on Saturday, an increase compared with the average number of calls of 758 and 716 respectively.
This is very impressive performance and should help to reassure members of the public that we are here for them 24 hours, seven days a week.
While there is always room for improvement and we are happy to take on board direct feedback from the public to guard against complacency, the Force Control Room team deserve our praise for consistently going the extra mile to ensure residents of North Yorkshire and the City of York receive the best possible service.
Breakdown of calls to the Force Control Room
999 emergency calls:
Friday 12 July: 233 x 999 calls. This is 49 more calls than the Friday average over the last 10 weeks.
Saturday 13 July: 366 x 999 calls This is the highest number of calls in a 24-hour period they have seen for a number of years and 133 more calls than the previous 10 weeks on a Saturday.
Sunday 14 July: 293 x 999 calls. This is 72 more than an average Sunday over the past 10 weeks
101 non-emergency calls:
Friday 12 July: 933 non-emergency calls which is 175 more than the average for a Friday over the last 10 weeks of 758 calls.
Saturday 13 July: 909 non-emergency calls which is 193 more than the average for a Saturday over the last 10 weeks of 716 calls.
Sunday 14 July: 756 non-emergency calls which is 102 more than the average Sunday over the last 10 weeks of 654
The calls included:
164 incidents of highway disruption (broken down vehicles, debris in road etc)
152 road traffic collisions
508 reports of anti-social or nuisance behaviour
150 reports of violence
105 domestic incidents
29 missing person reports
