Controversial £18m police firing range plans for Staffordshire remain in budget

The proposal first came to light a year ago when Staffordshire’s former Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis was quizzed by councillors. He said at the time the decision would be a matter for his successor to consider after he stood down at the 2021 election.

On Monday Ben Adams, who was elected to the commissioner’s post in May, was questioned about the firing range as he presented his first budget to the Police, Fire and Crime Panel.

Councillor Ann Edgeller asked: “You’ve put on your budget £18m for a firing range – is this still an ongoing project or is it something you’re still discussing?”

Mr Adams responded: “The organisation at the moment uses a site in the countryside. It is not fit for purpose in my view. It does the job and I’m pleased to say we have arranged continuation of using that in the short term, so there’s no immediate pressure.

“But there is a pressure to provide proper training facilities for the firearms team. There are over 100 people fully trained in Staffordshire, they are there to respond to some of the most serious incidents around organised crime, drugs trading and counter-terrorism exercises.

“The training demand is increasing all the time and an awful lot of that delivery is done now from vehicles, so the capacity to bring vehicles onto your training facility and work through the exercises is really important and something they can’t do effectively at the minute.”

The capital spending programme presented to the panel revealed that a £150,000 budget had been earmarked for the firing range project for coming financial year, with further budgets of £6.35m in 2023/24 and £11.5m in 2024/25.

Mr Ellis revealed in early 2021 that the firing range plans were at the business case stage.

But Mr Adams said on Monday: “What I haven’t been convinced of in the nine months since I’ve been in position is that we’ve got a properly finished business case. I think there are some questions about the location, questions about the size of the range.

“I’m exploring all sorts of opportunities, including possibly sharing that facility with other forces. One thing I do know is that having space and renting it out barely covers the cost.

“There’s also a question of national regulation. They may be looking at a different type of range to before.

“This is an ongoing conversation and that is why the amount in the budget hasn’t changed from last year. It’s not a finger in the air, it’s more detailed than that. Last year it included for an operations centre on top of the range, all located at HQ.

“That’s all been reviewed – we certainly aren’t going to have an operations centre on top of the firing range. But because of the increased costs and inflation in building at the minute, the savings mean the budget comes pretty much back to where it was.

“This is something for us all to keep our eyes on. But I’m not up for spending money unnecessarily or having gold-plated when silver’s good enough.”