Saffron Walden Town Council is exploring the direct funding of local policing to address the Police Commissioner’s withdrawal of policing from Uttlesford and the 13% annual increase in crime, Residents for Uttlesford (R4U) has announced.
Heather Asker (R4U)Cllr Asker continued “Crime in Essex has risen 65% faster than the country’s average and is rapidly increasing. In fact it is nearly 13% higher than a year ago. Our police are also 20% worse at catching criminals than the national average. No wonder Essex residents are significantly less satisfied with their police than the national average. To be clear we strongly support the police themselves and they do an outstanding job with the resources they are given. But the Police Commissioner’s strategy of budget cuts and replacing local Bobbies on the beat with ‘techno-cops’ based in Braintree is not the solution. Criminals are back down the M11 before the police even cross the Uttlesford border. So we’ve decided to act. We need uniformed officers right here, right now. So R4U has sponsored a Town Council motion to look into the feasibility of the Town Council funding local PSCOs, and it was approved last week with good cross-party support.”
“There are a number of things we need to explore, such as ‘should the Town be paying to fill the gaps in policing?’; ‘what is the budget impact’; and ‘what controls could we put in place to stop the Police Commission allocating the Town’s PSCOs somewhere else?’ We also have support from UDC who stated at the Town Hall meeting that they would pay for 50% of PSCOs funded by town and parish councils. If we move forward, we’ll hold them to that promise.”
R4U’s Heather Asker concluded “Funding the Town’s own PSCOs is a complex issue, but as elected councillors it is important that we listen to what local people say and implement plans to meet their needs, even if it would seem that those needs should be filled by others. And the issues we’ve seen in Saffron Walden are faced elsewhere in the district; for example there have been recent bank raids in Dunmow. So we are happy to share our findings with other Uttlesford town and parish councils. And of course we’ll keep residents posted as we explore the proposal.”