A SENIOR police officer has admitted that West Midlands Police had struggled to deal with the volume of calls being made to its non-emergency 101 number.
Frustrations about getting through to a call handler to report an incident had previously come up at public meetings held in Kingshurst and Castle Bromwich earlier this year.
In a report prepared by Solihull Council's Crime and Disorder Scrutiny Panel, which met last month, it was noted that the 101 service - which receives an average of two or three calls every minute - had been "tested to the limit" over the summer.
Superintendent Simon Inglis, from Solihull Police, acknowledged that the difficulties of coping with demand had meant some callers had been made to wait longer than the force "would have wished".
Members of the Scrutiny Panel noted residents' frustration about response times, which are seen as especially important given the previous decision to close many stations, including Chelmsley Wood, to the public.
Supt Inglis said that the force had, in recent months, recruited extra staff to cope with the workload and that service had improved as a result.
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