Growing the frontline

Gloucestershire remains one of the safest places to live and work, we have the 5th lowest crime rates in the country (it was 14^th when I took office).

Despite austerity we’ve invested in early intervention & prevention schemes and that has helped keep crime down. It was praised by the former Policing Minister Nick Hurd.

Thanks to you the local public, we’ve started recruiting again, with 74 new officers recruited last year. The government is also promising around 150 extra over the next few years. So I’m hopeful we’ll get around 300 extra police and staff within the next few years.

Over the course of the next Police and Crime Plan, I want a stronger policing presence in our communities.

I want the Chief Constable to have a 5 year plan for growing the Constabulary’s capability to meet current demands and have the capacity to deal with what might happen in the future.

Whether that means recruiting more police, police community support officers (PCSOs); extra police staff, volunteers and expanding the Special Constabulary, I want to see a properly costed, affordable plan to ‘Grow the frontline’.

But it also needs closer partnerships with other agencies, the voluntary sector and the communities we serve.