Candidates’ pledges for Lancashire police commissioner role

Current Conservative commissioner, Andrew Snowden is facing Labour's Clive Grunshaw, who previously held the post for nine years, and Liberal Democrat Neil Darby, deputy leader of his party’s group on Preston City Council.

With postal voting packs already beginning to land on doormats, here is what the candidates had to say in a ‘mini-manifesto’.

NEIL DARBY (Lib Dem) 

Neil Darby

“As a councillor in Preston, I am very familiar with the need for our local police to work well within our communities to protect our neighbourhoods.

"We need first and foremost to restore proper community policing, to have police officers visible, trusted and approachable in our neighbourhoods.

"Meanwhile, we need the wider force to be focused on preventing and solving crimes.

"It is vital we build a well-rounded approach for local policing to both care for victims and reduce repeat offences which currently takes up so much police time.

"By working with other local bodies such as social services, health workers and teachers, the police can work with the wider community to head off many crimes, such as anti-social behaviour, at the source.

"We can also reduce reoffending by working closely with the Prison Service to improve rehabilitation and strengthen supervision of offenders in the community.

"These approaches can prevent many issues from becoming greater problems over time, freeing police time in the long term and avoiding a constant battle just to keep up with crimes in our community.

"I will also press for Lancashire Police to work closely with mental health services. If police are trained to spot incidents where someone is suffering a mental health crisis, they should have a target of one hour to handover to mental health services who are best placed to help. This would help save lives as well as police time.

"Finally, as the police and crime commissioner, I would push for this position to be scrapped altogether and allow existing elected representatives of our communities to provide a much greater and locally-based oversight of our police forces, freeing up the resources of funding the office of police and crime commissioner to be used to fund frontline policing instead.”

CLIVE GRUNSHAW – (Lab)

Clive Grunshaw

“Under my watch as Lancashire PCC from 2012 to 2021, I had to deal with Conservative government cuts of more than 25 per cent to our budget.

"We lost more than 800 police officers while Rishi Sunak proudly proclaimed how he’d changed Labour’s funding formulas to take money away from Lancashire and give it to places like Royal Tunbridge Wells.

"More recently, while police officer numbers are returning, we are not seeing more police, but fewer.

"Police officers are being placed in desk jobs, answering phones and doing paperwork, while the number of police staff is being cut.

"Lancashire Constabulary had a proud reputation and my management ensured that we were rated, by government inspectors, as outstanding for our use of resources – not any longer.

"Working with an incoming Labour government committed to neighbourhood policing and fair funding, I will put bobbies back on our streets, not sat behind desks.

"I will deliver on domestic abuse, visibility, prevention, value for money and improving our service to the public.

"Elect me as your PCC and I will restore leadership and competence. I will ensure you get the service you want, to the standards that you expect… and more bobbies back on our streets.”

ANDREW SNOWDEN – (Con)

Andrew Snowden

“For three years, I have been delivering a back-to-basics approach to policing.

"Recruiting more than 600 officers and getting them out on the beat, reopening police stations to the public and sending a clear message – police are here to fight crime and protect people.

"From funding one of the largest rural policing teams in the country, the new roads policing unit, the anti-social behaviour target team, or the task forces busting up criminal gangs – the changes and investments I have made are working.

"Lancashire Constabulary has launched two operations with the extra resources I have made available to deliver the priorities I set of getting tough on anti-social behaviour and to relentlessly target criminal gangs.

"Since Operation Warrior was launched, more than 1,400 gang suspects have been arrested, 286kg of class A&B drugs seized, and more than £1 million of criminals’ cash taken off them.

"Since Operation Centurion was launched more than 14,000 extra hours of foot patrols have taken place in anti-social behaviour hotspots, with over 1,500 stop checks and searches taking place and over 140 repeat offenders arrested.

"But I know there is much more to do. That’s why I have committed £1m a year, for the next three years, to recruit even more officers to join the ranks of local neighbourhood teams across Lancashire.

"It’s why I’ve set out plans to expand the roads policing unit to target ‘boy racers’, and to fund a further rollout of the anti-social behaviour foot patrols.

"But I can only deliver all this if re-elected in May. A vote for me is a vote to continue to focus on the basics, leading the fight against crime.”