Crime rises as police numbers fall
TOWN hall chiefs have told of their ‘grave concerns’ at rocketing crime levels as it emerged Rochdale has lost 200 police officers in the last seven years.
Councillors are tonight (Wednesday) set to call on the Home Secretary to ‘restore police numbers’ in order to ‘keep our communities safe’.
It comes in a motion protesting against cuts to the Greater Manchester Police budget which has seen the number of officers slashed by almost a quarter in recent years.
The motion, due to be put forward by finance chief Coun Allen Brett, says that in the last 12 months Greater Manchester has seen an ‘appalling increase’ in crime including:
A 30 per cent increase in victim-based crime, which includes violent crime, domestic abuse and sexual offences.
A 63 pc increase in domestic abuse
A 53 pc increase in hate crime
A 19 pc increase in burglary
A 54 pc increase in robbery
The motion adds: “This appalling increase in the crime rate can be directly attributed to the cuts in funding by central government. Greater Manchester Police has lost £180M in police funding since 2010. This has led to a significant decrease in police numbers.
“In 2010, there were 8,148 police and 842 PCSOs patrolling Greater Manchester’s streets.
“By March of last year the number of police officers had been slashed by 23 per cent to just 6,297 – far more than the national average.
“The number of PCSOs fell by 11 per cent to 748.
“The borough of Rochdale has lost around 200 police officers as a result of these cuts in central government funding
“This council instructs the chief executive to write to the Home Secretary to demand the government provide adequate resources to provide a properly funded Greater Manchester Police service to restore Police numbers; keep residents safe and be able to respond to the increasing demands and threats our communities face.”
In August the Observer reported how GMP is so stretched that officers from specialist divisions even assistant chief constables - were being drafted in to help with community policing.
Detectives from the Serious and Organised Crime Unit are among those being deployed out of their departments to help deal with a huge back-log of non-urgent cases.
A two-week push to try and clear the investigations was launched, with the problem being caused by a significantly increased demand on police resources following the Manchester Bomb at a time when GMP was already trying to cope with cuts.
In the aftermath of the bomb, Chief Constable, Ian Hopkins, commenting on the force’s current strength said: “Six thousand two hundred (officers) does feel like the lower end of reasonable”.