I MAKE no apology for writing to you again about North Yorkshire Police.

In your item about the force HQ’s move from Newby Wiske Hall to Alverton Court, Northallerton (D&S Times, July 28) you report the chief constable as saying: “This reflects where we should be, not Newby Wiske where ex-colonels and major generals used to be chief constables’.

The last ex-military chief constable hereabouts was Colonel J.C.Chaytor who was appointed in 1929 and retired almost sixty years ago in 1959, long before the force HQ moved to Newby Wiske Hall in 1976. There has never been an ex-army chief constable there.

I served under Colonel Chaytor when I was a cadet in the North Riding Constabulary and again after I joined the force as a constable. In my opinion he was a better chief constable than several chief constables we have had since.

If the objection to Colonel Chaytor and his ilk is that they were amateurs and not professional police officers then the irony is that the force is now run by another amateur, the police and crime commissioner.

The chief constable’s inaccurate assertion was intended to give us the impression the force is moving forward but it has actually moved backwards in this respect.

I would also point out that the move of what are described as the war-memorial “stones” into a memorial garden at Alverton Court is wholly inappropriate. The plaques, paid for by the then-members of the North Riding force, were designed for display internally in the entrance to the old HQ on Racecourse Lane. They were transferred to the entrance to Newby Wiske Hall.

Unfortunately they were later moved outside without consultation with retired officers who at that time included some men who had contributed towards their cost.

It was inevitable they would be damaged by the weather, as I pointed out in a letter to one of your predecessors at the time, and they have indeed been damaged.

It seems they are now destined to suffer yet more damage. The officers commemorated on these plaques deserve better.

When they were first placed outside I was contacted by the War Memorials Trust, whose attention had been drawn to my letter in your newspaper by a member of the public.

They deplored what had happened but unfortunately they could do nothing about the “fait accompli.”

Have they been consulted about this latest inappropriate move I wonder?

David Severs (retired Chief Superintendent, Northallerton)