Last week, Richard had his first meeting with the new Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire, John Tizar.
Speaking afterwards, Richard Fuller MP said:
It was a real pleasure to have my first face to face conversation with John Tizard, the Police and Crime Commissioner elected back in May.
The General Election had disrupted our ability to catch up but in the meantime Mr Tizard has clearly been getting to grips with his brief and with the more rural crime aspects of it. Mr Tizard emphasized his support for community policing and we found common ground on this matter, although I made the point that his predecessors had made sure that policing resources in North Bedfordshire were steadily rebuilt. I have hopes that Mr Tizard will continue with this policy which has seen frontline police staff steadily increase at Biggleswade and Riseley over the past five years. We are not talking high numbers, but every extra police officer increases confidence that tackling crime is being taken seriously in all parts of Bedfordshire.
We also talked about incidents in recent months that affected a number of villages including Ickwell, Bletsoe and Clapham: issues raised by residents at one of my Town Hall meetings in recent months.
Finally we also covered the issue of national funding for the Bedfordshire Police budget. This is a cross party issue in Bedfordshire as the national funding formula has never worked well. I made the point – again – that a share of the additional profits made from the potential expansion of Luton Airport should be set aside to create a permanent additional source of revenue for our police. That decision will be up to Luton Council which is on course to get a huge windfall of extra money if the airport expansion goes ahead.
