POLICE chiefs tackled a range of topics including Poole bus station and the poisoned eagle investigation during a Q&A with the public.

Dorset's Police and Crime Commissioner, David Sidwick was joined by Dorset Police Chief Constable Scott Chilton on Monday May 30 to answer questions n a Facebook Live from the Dorset community about their policing strategy.

The subjects covered included anti-social behaviour in Poole bus station, Dorset Police’s deployment times, police recruitment, council support, the poisoned eagle investigation, county lines in Poole, policing rural areas and motorbike theft.

As police deployment times made the headlines earlier this week, Dorset Police Chief Constable Chilton answered a question about Dorset Police’s handling of 999 calls, he said: "We have about 1,000 calls a day, about 600 of those become recorded incidents and there’s about 150 crimes recorded a day.

"However the important thing is that we effectively triage those and assess whether immediate deployment is necessary.

"We have made mistakes in the past and I acknowledge that we haven't deployed when we should have done and that's why the effective triage is really important.

He continued: "There will be times that the service is under significant pressure that we simply cannot deploy but it will be done on a prioritisation basis."

One resident asked: “Dorset is a beautiful county, rich in wildlife which should be protected to benefit all of us. Why has the rural Wildlife Crime Team been renamed the Rural Crime Team?”

Chief Constable Chilton said: “There’s been an awful lot of confusion, miscommunication, however you want to describe it, around the rural crime team.

“Statements have been put out from myself and the rural crime commissioner around this recently. The reality is, I’ve tripled the size of the crime team since I've been appointed.

"There is absolute clear commitment within the police and crime plan to invest and strengthen our service to rural areas.

“The change in name has caused confusion, it's a nonsense, there has been no change of strategy it's always been about tackling heritage crime, wildlife crime and the belief that we are taking this less seriously is based on what i don't know, it’s ill founded and it's not true, it's quite the opposite.”

The PCC concluded by thanking all the people who attended and asked questions.