The Government has announced proposals to drastically reduce the number of police forces in England and Wales.
Plans will be announced imminently to reduce the 43 local police forces into as few as 12 ‘regional forces’ – with a focus on mayor and organised crime rather than community policing with smaller local policing teams based in localities.
The below council motion comes from Cumberland Lib Dems opposes the merging of local police forces into regional entities and the de-prioritisation of local community policing. You can copy it for use on your council below:
This Council notes:
- The Home Secretary is planning to merge England and Wales’s 43 police constabularies into as few as 12 or 15 larger regional forces.
- The need for a commitment to strong, visible, community-based policing and local accountability.
- Evidence that local policing builds trust, improves crime prevention, and ensures responsiveness to community needs.
- Police forces already achieve economies of scale through joint procurement of vehicles, shared ICT systems, and collaborative cross-border operations to tackle issues such as county lines drug dealing.
This Council believes:
- Merging police forces into “mega-forces” would weaken local accountability and reduce the visibility of officers in our communities.
- Investment should focus on modernising technology, improving data sharing, and strengthening community policing—not structural mergers.
This Council resolves to:
- Oppose any proposals to merge our local police force into a regional or national entity.
- Call on the Government to prioritise:
- Increased funding for community policing teams.
- National standards for vetting and technology upgrades to improve efficiency.
- Enhanced rural crime support and local police desks in community hubs.
- Write to the Home Secretary and local MPs to express this Council’s opposition to force mergers and support for localised policing.