In a highly significant move and following the publication of a report detailing the cost of policing marches, Strathclyde Police and its governing body said officers were forced to deal with too many parades and agreed to enter into a debate aimed at a wholesale reduction.
Both the force and Strathclyde Police Authority said it was too early to say what they anticipated to be a more “proportionate and rational” number than the 1061 held last year and said the aim was to reduce the number of applications for marches rather than objecting to and banning them.
Strathclyde’s deputy chief constable, Neil Richardson, revealed that the £1.7m cost of policing parades last year was a conservative estimate, adding that “the real cost” was the impact on communities of officers being removed from frontline duties.
The authority’s convener, Paul Rooney, said any reduction would be addressed at those organisations holding “excessive repeat marches”, a thinly veiled reference to the Protestant Loyal Orders, which are responsible for the bulk of the parades, and Republicans, which take up a disproportionate amount of resources.
Chief constable Steve House and Mr Richardson insisted they could only secure a reduction by dialogue, but after yesterday’s meeting one source said: “If we can’t reach an arrangement, the problem won’t go away. We must start with dialogue with a range of parties but a choice between increased levels of parades and putting police on the streets isn’t a choice.”
Mr Richardson said: “A figure as to what is proportionate isn’t necessarily something we’d have in mind when going into these discussions but when we’ve 30 more Loyalist and Republican parades in Glasgow than Belfast that signifies things are not proportionate at this moment.”
Mr House added: “By discussion we believe that we could reach a more reasonable number and a more reasonable settlement for everybody.”
Two months ago Glasgow City Council announced it wanted to reduce the number of parades within its boundaries by up to 90% and move the main July procession away from the city centre.
But ahead of yesterday’s meeting the Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, Ian Wilson, accused the authorities of “posturing and spin” and that none of his membership had been approached about dialogue.
Responding to the accusations, Mr Richardson and councillor Rooney said the report was based on factual accounts and hard statistics. Privately, some authority members believe calls for dialogue by the Orange Order suggests the recent coverage on parades is having an impact on the organisation and may make it more flexible than would otherwise have been the case, although they admit the federal make-up of the Order may make an overall consensus with the group difficult.
Speaking afterwards, Cllr Rooney said: “When we’ve been discussing the deficit we face this was always going to be an issue which would arise. We want appropriate freedom of expression but it must be rational and proportionate.
“What we want to address is excessive repeat marches. Of course these are the ones we want to reduce. £1.7m year-on-year is unsustainable.”
At yesterday’s meeting Cllr Anne Jarvis called on the chief constable to object to more parades, while the leader of Glasgow’s LibDems, Chris Mason, said councillors’ role as “custodians of civil liberty includes not being menaced by hooligans”.
Mr Wilson said: “It shocks us that the police tend to police, particularly the Glasgow parade, almost like a military operation.
“My message to both the police and the local authorities is – let’s stop the posturing, stop the spin and some of the dodgy statistics and let’s get round the table and talk about this.”
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