@ Mr.Sensible; "who would you expect to protect you and your property?" Yeah right, because thats what riot police do. Come off it. One of th biggest accusations aimed at the police during last years riots was that the police DID NOT do anything of the sort.Riot police are Govt. tools for cracking heads.

@anon

If you're not job i'll eat my cap.

"NUMBER OFF...."

The reason why Cumbria have riot Police is not just for riots .The Police Support Unit can be used for prison riots, dangerous house entries and of course riots. Cumbria as a force who has signed up to mutual aid has to have a certain amount of officers trained in public order tactics so if needed by other forces such as the MET .Like last summer ,they had enough to send several PSU to the MET to help at the riots and Nottinghill Carnival which was a week after the riots and tensions were still running high. The comment regarding "do they know something we dont" is a good one as we have seen civil unrest last year and who knows as we get into more debt and more people lose jobs its only matter of time before the wheel comes of and people have had enough.

@ John Reardon - "It is sickening to see them grabing 50k from the County Council when over 300 staff from Children's Services were made redundant". Sorry John but the police need this training due to the type of society that we now live in. It is unfortunate that we have people like you who are very cynical of the police but what would happen in the future if your town becomes embroiled in a riot like the recent ones in London/Manchester/Liverpool? Who would you expect to protect you and your property? A well-trained group of police officers or a group of chimps?

"Then police posing as rioters hurled missiles and burning objects at fellow officers trained to deal with public disorder." That's what the Fuzz usually do around the world. They fake a riot and then use it to badger cash out of the government.

It is sickening to see them grabing 50k from the County Council when over 300 staff from Children's Services were made redundant and programmes to support youth engagement have been cut.

There was no public discussion about the Fire Service's involvement - are the FBU okay with this? We could contact them and see if they would be interested in something jointly - only a letter with their monika would grab the headlines.

@ James O - "do they know something we don't"
They know that people are going to be pushed to the brink this year, they know that whole communities are going to be displaced by benefit cuts, they know that this is going to be a bleak place for the poor, the ill and the disabled . They know there is likely to be a public reaction once the real consequences of the cuts are seen. If the lid comes off the pressure cooker that this government is creating, they will need riot police - maybe even here in peaceful Cumbria.

The headline is a bit misleading i think, surely it will not be used sorely for cumbrian police training,if that is the case why do cumbrian police need riot training do they know something we don't.Perhaps another charity shop is being brought to whitehaven and the cafe owners are about to riot as the charity shops are taking over their turf.

In these times of having to save millions in thier budget Cumbria Police in thier wisdom spend £150,000 on something that looks like a car park with a few movable metal barriers on. I wonder how the staff who have been made redundant from Carleton Hall feel when they are jobless and they see that Cumbria Police are wasting money.A kick in the teeth I think for these people

A good idea but i hope the training doesn't need to be put into practice. Riots we can do without, they should not be part of the British scene.

I hope they do a bit better than the effort last year in London, Manchester etc when the ''We have'nt done the risk assessment so we'd better watch the riots, fires and thieving from a safe distance'' seemed to be the attitude.