South Yorkshire Police horses to return to Barnsley

South Yorkshire's police horses were trained for the London 2012 Olympics

A police force is bringing its horses back to South Yorkshire two years after they were moved to shared stables in a neighbouring county.

Nine South Yorkshire Police horses and riders were moved from Cudworth near Barnsley to West Yorkshire Police's base in Wakefield.

Police said the shared stabling cost saving plan had not been efficient.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire has approved £275,000 to update the county's stables.

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The horses were kept at Ring Farm in Cudworth since the early 1990s, before being moved 12 miles to Carr Gate near Wakefield in 2016 for a cost-sharing exercise with the West Yorkshire force's horses, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

They were still used for South Yorkshire duties while at Wakefield, especially in crowd control at football matches and for policing other local events.

The horses are also used for national events, including the London 2012 Olympics and policing major world conferences.

All South Yorkshire Police horses are named after locations in the county

Police and Crime Commissioner, Dr Alan Billings, said £275,000 will bring the vacant stables to a better standard than when the horses last lived there.

He said: "The horses are expensive but are brilliant in certain situations, crowd control being the main one.

"We feel here it is right to keep them, we have five football teams and a history of marches. They are invaluable, certainly with football."

Supt Simon Wanless said stabling them in Wakefield created difficulties.

"It wasn't an efficient way of using them," he said. "We were inherently building in delays for them.

"It [makes] sense to have our resources in our county."

He said the horses are a "real crowd-puller" and "valuable" for community engagement.

The Wakefield move took place under South Yorkshire's former chief constable, David Crompton, who also dismantled the neighbourhood policing system which has now been re-established.