Richard has welcomed the news that Conservative candidate, Festus Akinbusoye, has been elected as the new Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
Speaking after the votes were counted, Richard Fuller, MP for North East Bedfordshire said:
The election of Festus Akinbusoye as the new Police and Crime Commissioner is great news for all involved in tackling crime and anti social behaviour in Bedfordshire. He has been the most energetic, most passionate, most effective candidate during this campaign and thoroughly deserved to win.
Festus has a clear commitment to increasing police numbers and sharing them fairly across the county. I also welcome his commitment to fund alcohol and drug rehabilitation programmes.
Festus has already demonstrated he has real pull with the Government and I look forward to working with him. Immediate priorities that I want to talk with him about are:
- Stronger police presence in Biggleswade and Sandy;
- An additional officer and more drone resources for rural policing;
- Joining me to change ownership of Luton airport land to Bedfordshire police to provide a long term solution to funding;
- Enacting his "get tough” policies on fly-tipping, hare coursing and other serious anti social behaviours.
Congratulations, Festus. We are very proud of your election success.
PCCs are elected using the supplementary vote system, with people making a first and second choice. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, all except the top two candidates are eliminated. At that stage the second votes of those residents whose first choice has been eliminated are counted.
Festus secured 51,700 votes in the first round and 8,093 second preference votes giving a total of 59,793 votes. The Labour candidate secured 42,708 in the first round and 8,107 second preference votes giving a total of 50,815 votes. The Liberal Democrat, English Democrat and Independent candidates were eliminated after the first round of voting.
The full results can be found here.
