North Swindon MP Raises Fellow Local Residents' Concerns With Police & Crime Commissioner

Local MP Justin Tomlinson has met with the elected Police and Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire, Angus MacPherson, to discuss a number of different issues.

Justin raised again the issues that local residents have been having with both the 999 and 101 call service. Mr MacPherson acknowledged that more needed to be done to make the call centres work and communicate better and they hope that a new appointment will start to make improvements quickly.

Also discussed was the number of officers in Wiltshire compared to other forces who have similar budgets. It was pointed out that there were a number of circumstances which resulted in different figures for forces across the country, but the hope with the community policing team model is that there will be more officers out on the beat in Swindon. As a third of the crime committed in the Wiltshire force area was committed in Swindon, Justin made sure to ask that this was reflected in the portion of officers deployed in Swindon.

A long list of local issues from motorbikes to speeding were also discussed on behalf of local residents. Justin was also keen to ensure that there was a proper plan in place to tackle anti-social behaviour, something which has been on the rise since January of this year.

Justin Tomlinson MP said: “we all appreciate that Police officers face an unprecedented number of serious requests a day especially regarding safeguarding issues. It is therefore extremely important that resources are deployed efficiently and wisely. I meet regularly with the Police – both the accountable side and the operational side – to raise issues on behalf of local residents so I am grateful for the time they took to meet with me.”