Cat Smith Working for Lancaster and Wyre

Last week in Parliament I got the opportunity to praise three amazing PCSOs from Fleetwood, Ben Arnold, Neil Thomas and Nick Barber.
The trust and engagement that PCSO Ben Arnold has gained with young people have been exemplary. In the past 12 months, youth antisocial behaviour in Fleetwood has reduced considerably, and much of that is down to Ben’s dedication to engaging with the local teenage community. Ben knows them all by name, and they know him.
PCSO Neil Thomas has done excellent work on a long-term ASB issue at a local park. He managed to regain the trust of some of the main complainants, so much so that one of them even became a PCSO herself, after being inspired by her involvement with Neil and the team.
Nick Barber is a veteran and a brilliant PCSO. He builds excellent community relations and takes ownership of problems. He has been instrumental in building community relations over the past 18 months, and tenacious in following up community intelligence and turning it into positive results.
Recent figures show that 3,000 anti-social behaviour incidents occur each day in the UK with the overall charge rate for crime standing at just 5.5%! Despite these alarming statistics, under this Conservative government 6,000 neighbourhood police officers have been axed since 2015 and the number of Police Community Support Officers has fallen by more than 8,500 since 2010. Across my constituency and nationally, we are being drained of neighbourhood policing and the good work of amazing PCSOs like Ben, Nick and Neil in Fleetwood.
Labour condemns the destruction of neighbourhood policing, we pledge to rebuild it with a £360m package of 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers and PCSOs. This will be paid for through a police efficiency programme, working with police forces and PCCs to deliver procurement and shared services savings, comfortably covering the recruitment of 10,000 new neighbourhood police, with a further 3,000 ringfenced from the existing uplift.
The story from Fleetwood, from the leadership, the detectives, the police officers and the PCSOs, is a testament to the power of neighbourhood policing and the real difference that it can make. I hope that the Policing Minister will accept my recent invitation to visit Fleetwood and see first hand, the amazing individuals who serve policing and serve the community with passion and a determination to make Lancashire safer!
You can read my full contribution to the debate here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2023-01-31/debates/8A1AA734-0ADD-4565-9A3D-768FB2976434/CrimeAndNeighbourhoodPolicing#contribution-92C6299F-3515-4445-B95C-8454C3192D38