Only 0.1% of police dedicated to rural crime teams

The Conservative government have “neglected” rural communities, according to Steve Lambert the Parliamentary Candidate for Aylesbury Constituency, which has several rural villages and hamlets, as figures reveal that Thames Valley police cut numbers of staff and officers dedicated to rural crime last year to just 14 for the whole of the Thames Valley.

With fewer than one in 1,000 police officers around the country dedicated to rural crime teams Steve Lambert said “we need to scrap the Police and Crime Commissioner role and end the neglect of our rural communities. I am shocked that in our area it has gone down in the last year to just 14 officers”

In April, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called for Police and Crime Commissioners to be scrapped so the savings can be invested in frontline policing, including ensuring that every police force has a properly resourced rural crime team. It is estimated the move would save £150 million every four years. 

Through a series of Freedom of Information requests, the Liberal Democrats discovered how many officers and staff are assigned to rural crime teams in each police force. 37 forces provided responses. 

Steve said crime and anti-social behaviour in rural areas includes many specific types of crimes that are unique to the countryside like livestock theft.

Rural crime teams are focused on preventing and solving rural crime, with specialist knowledge, equipment and skills.

Not a single police force, including Thames Valley had more than 1% of its officers and staff deployed to rural crime teams.

These disturbing revelations come as rural crime remains on the rise. NFU Mutual’s 2023 Rural Crime Report revealed that in 2022, the cost of rural crime across the UK rose by 22%, to an estimated total of £49.5 million.

The Liberal Democrat believe that every force should have a specialist coordinator in their rural crime team, in line with recommendations from The National Rural Crime Network. 

The party’s proposal to invest savings from scrapping PCCs into resourcing rural crime teams is the latest in a string of Liberal Democrat calls for the Conservative Government to take rural crime seriously. Last year, Liberal Democrat MP Richard Foord tabled a Bill that would require the Home Secretary to bring forward a strategy for tackling rural crime.

The Liberal Democrat manifesto sets out plans for a Fair Deal for Policing and do what actually works to stop and solve crime, including:

• Restore proper community policing, where officers are visible, trusted and focused on preventing and solving crimes – especially rape and other violent crime;
• Implement our Burglary Response Guarantee, under which all domestic burglaries will be attended by the police and properly investigated;
• Create a new, national Online Crime Agency that would take over things like online fraud and abuse, leaving more time for local forces to tackle burglaries and other neighbourhood crimes;
• Scrap Police and Crime Commissioners and invest the savings in frontline policing instead;
• Tackle the court backlogs, ensure swift justice for victims, and reduce the number of people in prison on remand.

More detail can be found here: Police workforce, England and Wales: 30 September 2023.