PCC ‘should have spoken out sooner’ on cuts

ESSEX’s Conservative Policing and Crime Commissioner has used the end of his term to publicly attack budget cuts at the force – but he should have spoken out sooner – the Chairman of Essex Police Federation has said.

Nick Alston spoke out at a local meeting in Rayleigh November, saying further cuts of £60million at Essex Police would be “perilous” for communities.

At the same meeting Stephen Kavanagh said he was having to deliver in the most difficult set of circumstances since wartime as he revealed policing numbers in the county had fallen below 3,000.

Mr Kavanagh said that was the minimum number he wished to operate with.

Mr Alston (pictured), who was the first to hold the position of Essex PCC when it was introduced in 2012, will step down from his post when the term is up in May and will not stand for re-election, he announced in July. Mr Alston said he will retire to spend more time with his family and focus on other projects.

But Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said Mr Alston should have made clear his fears for the force earlier in the game.

He said: “Mr Alston is a Tory. He was out going door to door prior to the general election earlier this year to get the Tories re-elected, fully aware that the Tories were saying that they were only halfway through the cuts.

“He is now coming out and saying all of this [about cuts] knowing that he’s not going to stand in May. It would have been nice if he’d come out with this when he was first elected and said these type of things. He now knows he’s yesterday’s man to a certain extent.

“We have an election coming up where we’ll probably have four or five candidates standing, one will be a Tory, and they’re they people that are going to be coming in from May and taking it forward into this next
round of cuts.

“I think it’s a bit late by the PCC and it would have been nice if he’d said this earlier.”