New police chief must get back lost funding
LAST week’s interview with Andrew Snowden, the Rossendale-based new police and crime commissioner in Lancashire, offered lots of hope for the future.
He has promised to make tackling anti-social behaviour a top priority.
That will be welcome news to many people here in Rossendale where, at times, pandemic lockdowns have led to more experience of anti-social behaviour.
But such policing is expensive and after a decade of budget cuts there are fewer police officers than we had in 2010. Understandably, when major crime occurs, that takes priority - but it’s anti-social behaviour which can blight people’s lives for long periods of time.
Mr Snowden, a former county councillor, also urged residents to be prepared to pay more for their policing. We were hit with a 7% rise just a couple of months ago.
The question which Mr Snowden needs to address is how he will get the funding back which we have lost over the last decade, not how how to convince people in Lancashire to pay more.
As Labour pointed out in the elections, Surrey has 60 more officers than it had in 2010, while Lancashire is down by
450. Any improvement on that situation is being paid for by us, the taxpayer.
Oddly, we didn’t receive a rebate in council tax when police officer numbers were reduced, but we are being asked to pay more to get back the officers we’re effectively already paying for.
That’s why Mr Snowden’s priority must be getting more money from Government, before returning to the taxpayers of Lancashire again.