Mid Bedfordshire needs more community policing, the Conservative candidate for next month’s general election has said. Blake Stephenson said: “I’ve been sitting on the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel since I was elected in May last year.
“Community policing and rural policing has been important to me. It’s important to my communities and I’ve always raised that with the police and crime commissioner. We have a new police and crime commissioner and I’m raising the same points,” he said.
And he highlighted that the rural nature of Mid Bedfordshire needs to shape how it is policed.
“It’s important that our villages and market towns don’t feel like they’re left out. I don’t want [police] resources to disappear to Luton and Bedford at the expense of our rural community.
“So I will work with the commissioner John Tizard and I’ll work with others on the Police and Crime Panel to ensure that we get the policing that we need in the villages,” he said.
“Obviously, it would be unreasonable to expect a police officer to be walking down every village street every day,” he added. “It has to be proportionate and not all policing is visible.”
Community engagement
Stephenson added that it is important for the police and crime commissioner to engage with our communities to make sure that they appreciate how policing is managed.
“And make sure people feel safe and I’ve worked with them to do that,” he said.
However, it is up to chief constables where police officers are placed operationally, so what would Stephenson do if officers weren’t being provided as requested by him and/or the police and crime commissioner?
“I’d write to the chief constable but I’d also write to the Home Office,” he replied.
The Home Office can’t tell chief constables where to put their operational officers either, so is this just about an MP making the right noises in the right places?
“I think it’s important that we have our MPs advocating for the things that our communities feel they need and I’ll do that at all levels,” Stephenson said.
In a leaflet, Stephenson said he had “recently secured £10 million in Central Bedfordshire Council’s budget to support the NHS.
Was this the same £10 million that the council’s Independent administration announced?
“I did have a conversation with councillor John Baker [the council’s executive member for finance] about who secured what,” Stephenson said.
“But during this budget round I campaigned to try and protect the programme to secure the health hubs, which was a previous Conservative administration’s aspiration.
“The budget came forward with no money in the capital budget for health. So I had a campaign, visibly, but also behind the scenes, discussing with colleagues what can be done to make sure that there was an appropriate sum in the health care budget.
“So Central Bedfordshire Council could get around the table with the Integrated Care Board in the same way that colleagues from Bedford borough did by putting £9 million on the table.
“I would suggest that that £10 million would not have come forward by the Independents in that budget had I not campaigned and had I not lobbied for it.
“So whilst technically it was their motion and they voted for it, I don’t think that would have happened without my campaign,” he said.
The other candidates standing to be Mid Beds’ next MP are:
- Richard Brunning – SDP
- Dave Holland – Reform UK
- Gareth Mackey – Independent
- Maahwish Mirza – Labour
- Stuart Roberts – Lib Dem
- Cade Sibley – Green Party
The election will be held on 4 July.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
