The Liberal Democrats are calling for specialist rural crime teams to be embedded in every police force in England and Wales.The proposals would see forces appointing a named contact for rural communities and officers given better access to technology, such as drones.The party said the policy would be funded by scrapping Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), who are elected officials responsible for overseeing police forces.Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey told the BBC there were “some serious crimes happening” in rural areas, including livestock theft and threats against farmers.Policing and crime have been among the issues parties have focused on ahead of May’s local elections, many of which are in rural areas.A report by NFU Mutual estimates the cost of rural crime increased to £52.8m in 2023 – up nearly 22% since 2020.The Lib Dems say rural crime teams are under-resourced in places like Devon, Cornwall and Hertfordshire, where are there elections to county councils this year.It made the same call for dedicated rural crime teams ahead of the local elections last year, and has long said PCCs should be abolished.The party said it submitted freedom of information requests for data on the number of officers working in rural crime teams in England and Wales.Lib Dems said the data show 619 police officers and staff were assigned to dedicated rural crime teams across 37 police forces in England and Wales last year – 0.4% of their overall workforce.Sir Ed said: “We’re calling for dedicated rural crime fighting forces, with technology like drones, to enable them to cover large rural areas and to catch these awful criminals.”He told BBC Breakfast there was too much cash tied up in PCCs and …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe Liberal Democrats are calling for specialist rural crime teams to be embedded in every police force in England and Wales.The proposals would see forces appointing a named contact for rural communities and officers given better access to technology, such as drones.The party said the policy would be funded by scrapping Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), who are elected officials responsible for overseeing police forces.Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey told the BBC there were “some serious crimes happening” in rural areas, including livestock theft and threats against farmers.Policing and crime have been among the issues parties have focused on ahead of May’s local elections, many of which are in rural areas.A report by NFU Mutual estimates the cost of rural crime increased to £52.8m in 2023 – up nearly 22% since 2020.The Lib Dems say rural crime teams are under-resourced in places like Devon, Cornwall and Hertfordshire, where are there elections to county councils this year.It made the same call for dedicated rural crime teams ahead of the local elections last year, and has long said PCCs should be abolished.The party said it submitted freedom of information requests for data on the number of officers working in rural crime teams in England and Wales.Lib Dems said the data show 619 police officers and staff were assigned to dedicated rural crime teams across 37 police forces in England and Wales last year – 0.4% of their overall workforce.Sir Ed said: “We’re calling for dedicated rural crime fighting forces, with technology like drones, to enable them to cover large rural areas and to catch these awful criminals.”He told BBC Breakfast there was too much cash tied up in PCCs and …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
