Ch Insp Fisher praises achievements of outgoing Chief Constable

"Last week saw Sir Iain Livingstone officially retire from his position as our Chief Constable following three decades of dedicated police service.

"He will be replaced by Chief Constable Jo Farrell, who takes up the role in October and I look forward to working with our new chief to ensure the policing needs of Borders’ communities are being met.

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"I also want to thank Sir Iain for his contributions to policing throughout his service and his efforts to mitigate against adverse impacts to local policing resource during an unprecedented level of demand and budget restriction. I wish him all the very best for the future.

"Despite the continued pressures we face, I am buoyed by the professionalism and dedication police officers and police support staff in the Scottish Borders display on a daily basis and they regularly rise to all challenges they face.

"Throughout August, the UCI World Cycling Championships took place in Scotland and various events were held at a number of different regions, including within the Borders. While this was an exciting couple of weeks that put worldwide media attention on the country, it required a considerable policing response in order to keep the athletes and spectators safe, while also mitigating against significant disruption to our wider communities.

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"Overall, the UCI Championships were a tremendous success and I want to thank all our personnel who were involved for their terrific work.

"All of the resource provided to this event was in addition to the resource provided for the various gala days, common ridings and other summer festivities that took place within the Borders and these obviously take place while local policing teams also respond to the numerous incidents and crimes that are reported in the area.

"Sir Iain spoke at length prior to his retirement of how Police Scotland needs to make a number of difficult decisions and that hard conversations will need to be had with a range of key partners about what we, as a service, can support. Protecting frontline policing is our priority and as such, there will be a necessity for other emergency service colleagues, as well as those in local authority and health and social care to take a more proactive role in leading on campaigns aimed at improving community wellbeing.

"Nevertheless, we remain steadfast in our desire to provide appropriate support whenever we can, as we identify that no single agency can achieve objectives in isolation and each specific initiative will be considered on its merit as to whether policing resources can be deployed.

"I also want to reassure Borders communities that we will continue to dedicate our resources accordingly to respond to the policing priorities identified by the public through their engagement with us, such as via the Your Police Survey. In addition, we can and will call upon national and specialist resource from across Police Scotland whenever we need to.

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"We are now reaching the end of the summer and the majority of major events for the Borders have concluded. However, that does not mean the hard work stops or that crime takes a break. We will now begin our preparations for winter safety and will provide more information on keeping safe over the festive period in due course.

"In the meantime, I would encourage the public to familiarise themselves with all of our relevant personal safety and crime prevention advice, which is available on our website at www.scotland.police.uk."