A RURAL police office in Wheathampstead, the only one in Hertfordshire, opened this afternoon to improve efficiency and visibility for village officers.

Part of Wheathampstead Memorial Hall, just off Marford Road, has been given free to Hertfordshire Constabulary by the parish council and converted by the force at a cost of £11,000.

Now equipped with a public counter, a computer, a phone and a confidential interview area, it will be open to the public two hours a week, and will provide the village team – Police Constable Arthur Wilkes and PCSO Jo Merritt - with somewhere to write up notes and catch up on administration.

Chief Superintendent Julia Wortley, opening the new base this afternoon, said: “This is a fine example of people working in partnership to support local policing.

“It will mean the team spend much more time working in the community rather than travelling back and forth from Harpenden and other police stations.”

Parish councillor Annie Brewster said: “We are proud to have such a good relationship with police officers in Wheathampstead.

“We need them at the heart of our community and we hope they are very happy here.”

She told the Review: “This is a good visible location,in the middle of the village and right in the heart of the community.”

Sergeant Lewis Duckett, who manages the Wheathampstead team from Harpenden Police station, told the Review: “Only this week, they here getting everything ready for today when they got a call – somebody was driving through the fields in a car.

“They were on the spot in 30 seconds. That would never have been possible if they had been in Harpenden.”

The opening hours of the police office, which has no facilities to accommodate people under arrest, are not yet fixed but will be advertised about a month in advance.