The Victoria Police hierarchy issued an operational order that all police were to work “two-up” after intelligence was received that a police officer would be targeted by home-grown terrorists.

That threat was listed as “imminent” and the change came into force earlier this month.

However, an unintended consequence of the directive has been that police rostered on by themselves in country stations have been unable to even answer the front door of their police stations.

A survey of 10 country police stations last week found that at times all were either unmanned or there were up to five stations where single officers were sitting behind their desks in their station with the front door locked.

There has also been a massive blowout in overtime.

The rosters — done a month in advance — have been rejigged so officers from nearby stations can go on duty together.

To assist the process hubs have been created across the south-west at Warrnambool, Portland, Camperdown and Hamilton.

Warrnambool includes the Koroit, Penshurst, Macarthur and Port Fairy stations, Camperdown covers Port Campbell, Mortlake, Lismore, Skipton, Terang, Cobden and Timboon while Hamilton involves Dunkeld, Branxholme, Coleraine, Cavendish and Balmoral with Portland including Heywood, Merino and Dartmoor.

Police sources have revealed the change to work practices was highly frustrating officers who previously worked by themselves.

Warrnambool’s Senior Sergeant Russell Tharle said rostering was evolving as the force adapted to two-up policing.

He said that due to the imminent terrorist threat, police command had decided that no officer would attend an incident by themselves.

Senior Sergeant Tharle revealed that he was accompanied by another officer to his weekly radio commitments at the Warrnambool ABC and 3YB this week.

He said the recent pipe bomb threat showed that Warrnambool was not immune from what was going on in the rest of the world.

That incident led to international media inquiries and questions from the office of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, he said.

The senior police officer said police were always ready to respond if anyone rang triple 0.

Senior Sergeant Tharle said even on Monday, when there were two serious incidents in the Corangamite area, police were able to respond.

There was a fatal single-vehicle accident at Kennedys Creek Road near Simpson in the south of the shire, and an old artillery shell was found on Monday afternoon at Skipton.

A Warrnambool senior sergeant in charge of traffic attended the accident scene along with Port Campbell and Cobden police while officers from Skipton and Mortlake helped look after the shell.

Senior Sergeant Tharle reassured residents that the same number of police were working across the south-west, just “in a slightly different way”. 

“People will be better serviced when we attend,” he said.