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16
Sept
Mayor opposes plan for Yorkshire-wide police force
David Skaith, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, says he opposes any move to merge police forces in Yorkshire.
The government is carrying out a review of the country’s 43 police forces, which could see some of them merge.
North Yorkshire Police could be amalgamated with the three other Yorkshire forces as part of what the government has called “the largest reforms to policing since forces were professionalised two centuries ago”.
However, Mayor Skaith told a York and North Yorkshire Combined authority overview and scrutiny meeting on Tuesday (September 15) that he and other mayors in Yorkshire were not supportive of such a proposal.
He said:
I have been very clear that I don’t want to see that happen. I know there has been talk of a Yorkshire-wide force.
Yorkshire mayors, including myself, are not supportive of it.
The Labour mayor said he was concerned that merging forces would mean that specialist policing, such as in rural areas, would be lost.
Mr Skaith said:
My concern is around the rural policing element and how that would get swallowed up into the big urban areas. If we were a big force, then it [resources] would just get pulled into Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford.
Community and neighbourhood rural policing would get lost and it is a very different expertise that is needed there.
The move comes as Cllr Carl Les, Conservative leader of North Yorkshire Council, has also come out in opposition to the pan.
He said a move to a wider region force would see rural areas face “disproportionate competition for resources” from urban areas.
Yorkshire mega-force
A Yorkshire mega-force would include North Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Police, West Yorkshire Police and Humberside Police.
Going on current numbers, that would result in a force with more than 13,000 officers – more than a combined Merseyside and Greater Manchester force would have (12,300). London’s Metropolitan Police has more than 34,000.
Neighbourhood police at One Arch in Harrogate.
But the changes will entail some major restructuring and changes to working practices, so are only expected to come into force by the end of the next parliament, around 2034.
The proposals, which are detailed in a White Paper, From local to national: a new model for policing, are designed to save money and improve crime-fighting efforts. Ministers say the current model is bureaucratic and wastes money, as each force currently runs its own headquarters, management teams and backroom staff.
They also believe smaller forces are not well enough equipped to deal with serious crime and major incidents. They say mega-forces could focus on tackling serious and organised crime, as well as complex cases involving murder and drug supply.
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