by Trevor Bevins, Local Democracy Reporting Service.
THREE letters to the Home Office about funding for Dorset Police have remained unanswered – according to the county’s Police and Crime Commissioner.
David Sidwick has now called on the county’s MPs to request a meeting with the Home Secretary over funding – with four out of the eight so far responding saying they will sign a letter to ask for the meeting.
“By the end of next week I am hoping that letter will go,” he said.
He says that his first letter to the Home Secretary was sent in April – pointing out the low levels of funding Dorset receives with a special case made for having to deal with a large influx of summer visitors and the extra costs of being a rural area.
He told the county’s police and crime panel that he has since written two other letters – neither of which have been responded to.
“I have had no official response back to those letters… I don’t know what else I can do,” he told the pan-Dorset police and crime panel.
“The lowest ten forces in the country when it comes to police funding are effectively rural forces. I am using every opportunity, I would enlist the aid of anybody in order to get this thing done. It’s an injustice and we need to address it,” he said.
The Dorset Police and Crime Panel unanimously backed sending its own letter to support the case for fairer funding.
David Sidwick, Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner