Local Greens condemn Lancashire Constabulary proposal to sack PCSOs
Monday, 25 October 2010
Local Green Party councillors are urging the Lancashire Police Authority not to dismiss all of Lancashire's Police Community Support Officers to make savings cuts.
As we reported last week, the county's 427 PCSOs have been handed redundancy notices that could lead to them all being dismissed in March 2011. Even Conservative Morecambe and Lunesdale MP David Morris seems clearly alarmed by this, calling for alternatives.
The Lancaster and Morecambe district has about 40 PCSOs, of whom 10 are part funded via the Lancaster District Community Safety Partnership.
"PCSOs are a vital part of the community's fight against crime and anti-social behaviour in our wards," argues Castle Ward councillor Jon Barry. "Anti-social behaviour has reduced massively since PCSOs were introduced.
"Before this, it was left to ward councillors and overworked police officers to try to sort things out - but this was rarely successful. I could perhaps understand reducing PCSO numbers but not eliminating them altogether. I urge the police authority not to take this action."
Bulk Ward councillor John Whitelegg added: "If the Police Authority goes through with its threat, I would be strongly in favour of switching the hundreds of thousands of pounds that the City Council spends on CCTV to keeping PCSOs as a visible presence on our streets."
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Obviously if the conservatives want to cut prison expenditure they will have to stop the police from catching criminals, and this is the first logical step.
They hope that through housing benefit cuts they will be able to herd all the poor into unpoliced ghettos and trailerparks, as in the US, while the rich will pay for security in their gated enclaves.
While Morris tables his EDM safe in the knowledge that it will sink without trace, he is actually fighting to have the region waste £150 million plus on a link road that hardly anyone will use, in the hope it will earn him future favours from British Energy.
In the meantime the area is denied sensible transport infrastructure planning that could sustain actual local businesses and support commuters.
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