A FACILITY for firearms and public order training for more than 300 firearms officers from Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset and Wiltshire police forces has been opened by the Home Secretary, Theresa May MP.

The creation of a single firearms training centre at Black Rock Specialist Training Centre, in Portishead, is part of the wider Tri Force collaboration to improve information exchange and resilience across force boundaries. Officers train together with a single, consistent approach to tactics and use of weapons, in line with the National College of Policing training framework.

The Tri Force collaboration between the forces provides specialist operational services including firearms, roads policing, collision investigation and dogs. In April 2014 officers from the three forces came together to create a borderless specialist policing team enabling the maintenance of key strategic policing requirement capabilities at lower cost, resulting in savings of £3.5 million.

Home Secretary Theresa May said: “There is a proud tradition in the United Kingdom that police officers do not generally carry firearms as they go about their very important work. However, as events in recent weeks have shown, when an operational need arises, specialist armed officers must be available for deployment. I want to pay tribute to these highly-trained, brave men and women who frequently put themselves in dangerous situations in order to keep the public safe.

Gloucestershire Deputy Chief Constable Rod Hansen said: “It is a very welcome development to see that the officers who bear the heavy responsibility of carrying police firearms in order to protect us all from the most serious of threats at last have a modern and highly professional facility to train in. The facilities are impressive but need to be and recent terrorist attacks very close to home remind us of the need to be as prepared as we can be.”