THERE are three numbers that should be making bigger headlines – 9, 12 and 18. These are the percentages that reflect what has happened with crime and they are all good news for us all.

National crime has fallen by nine per cent since 2010. Readers can cast their minds back to 2010 when there was uproar at the cuts that were being made to policing budgets.

Opposition parties in the House of Commons were confidently predicting a crime wave that would come as a result of budget cuts.

Yet budget cuts came at the same time as the start of a process to reform policing – including moving to elected police and crime commissioners – and we have seen an improvement in crime figures.

If anything, this proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that simply throwing money at what is perceived to be a problem is never the right answer: prudent and careful use of taxpayers’ money is more important than simply throwing it away on vanity projects.

But our police force – West Mercia Police – has done better than this. West Mercia has achieved a 12 per cent drop in crime. They have also suffered from budget cuts but have tackled this by sharing resources with the Warwickshire force, thus getting better value for taxpayers and delivering better service at the same time.

And even better than that, our local police in Wyre Forest have achieved a truly fantastic 18 per cent cut in local crime.

As the local MP, I have a reasonable amount to do with the local police. And I have to say that I have nothing but praise for the way they respond to anything that is raised from my office.

I get fairly few issues brought me by residents – about one a month, or so. But when we do, the police are very responsive indeed, coming back straight away with answers where necessary, or visiting residents as appropriate.

Wyre Forest police pioneered the Police and Community Together – PACT – programme where residents can meet on a regular basis with local police teams to raise concerns.

These work better in some parts of Wyre Forest than others. But it is the engagement with the community that the police here seem to be very good at.

We are lucky, in some respects, that we have such an outstanding local policing team here in Wyre Forest.

It is ironic that the better they are at their job, the less we know they are around – after all, it is through prevention of crime (rather than solving crime, when they become more high profile) that the police are doing the job we want them to do.

We should be incredibly grateful for the truly terrific job they do here locally.

CONTACT YOUR MP

  • Email: mark.garnier.mp@ parliament.uk
  • Telephone: 020 7219 7198 or 01562 746771.
  • Write: 9a Lower Mill Street, Kidderminster, DY11 6UU, or House of Commons, Westminster, London