David Williams, Labour's Parliamentary Candidate for Crewe and Nantwich, and the Minister of State at the Home Office David Hanson MP visited the Marshfield Community Centre last Monday to listen to residents’ views on crime and policing.
David Williams and David Hanson, Home Office Minister with responsibility for Crime and Policing, attended a packed meeting at the Marshfield Community Centre in Crewe last Monday. David Williams arranged the meeting to enable the Minister to hear the views of residents on crime and policing.
David Williams said, “I think it is important that Minister should be able to hear directly from local residents about their hopes and fears, about their concerns and about the success stories. I was therefore very pleased to be able to bring the minister for State at the Home Office who has responsibility for crime and policing to the meeting.”
David Hanson said, “Crime in general has reduced steadily and this is the first time ever that the UK has gone through a recession without crime rising. During the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s crime rose considerably and everyone expect it to rise again during the current recession but crime actually fell this time around so we must be doing something right.”
The latest crime figures for Crewe and Nantwich show that crime fell by 7.9% in Crewe and by 2.9% in Nantwich when compared to the same three month period last year.
He continued, “I was pleased to hear of the work being done by the local Police Community Support Officers in Crewe. It is clear that they have formed very valuable partnerships with the local communities and fulfil a role that is valued by those communities. The Tories are proposing to cut the ring-fenced funding of PCSOs if they win the next election and I think this is a grave mistake on their part. It is obvious to me that PCSOs play a very important part in communities and will be sorely missed if the funding for them disappears.”
The Minister went on to announce the introduction of a 101 non-emergency telephone number to be introduced later this year. He said, “This telephone number will allow resident to contact the police in a non-emergency situation rather than by using the 999 number thus freeing up that 999 system for use by true emergencies.”
He also criticised the Tories attempt to politicise the police by their commitment to introduce directly-elected Police Commissioners to run our police forces.
David Williams commented, “The meeting with the Minister went really well and enabled local residents to put their points directly to him and to hear about some of the plans for the future.”
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