THE number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) in York rose by just over four per cent last year.

Figures from North Yorkshire Police showed there were 475 KSI incidents in York between April 2018 and March 2019; in Selby the figure rose by 6.3 per cent to 170 over the same period.

Concerns for public safety and welfare also rose significantly in the same period, up 9.7 per cent in York to 22,333 - although the number of missing people and domestic incidents fell by 14.1 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively - while in Selby public safety and welfare incidents rose by 11 per cent to 8,209, with missing persons reports down 21.2 per cent and domestic incidents up 12.4 per cent to 186 and 616 respectively.

Details about how the Force Control Room has been handling its 999 and 101 calls were also revealed to the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s public accountability meeting in April, which showed the average time to answer emergency calls ranged from 5.4 seconds to 10.8 seconds between April 2018 and March 2019.

Non-emergency 101 calls saw a 3.4 per cent increase in that time, from 17,782 to 18,402, and while calls were often answered within two minutes, the average time taken to pick up ranged from 68.5 seconds to 153.2 seconds.

Assistant Chief Constable Ciaran Irvine told the meeting: “During the course of March our performance has fallen away slightly in relation to both 999 and 101 contact, but that’s in the context of continued increased demand, which is higher than this time last year.

"We do continue to maintain answer times under ten seconds for 999 calls and we are only falling to our secondary lines on very, very rare occasions, which continues to be a positive in the face of increased demand in that area.”