Proposed force mergers attacked by South East PCCs

The police and crime commissioners (PCC) of Kent, Sussex and Surrey have raised concerns about government plans to merge forces across the country.

On Monday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs the number of forces would be reduced from 43, with police chiefs calling for the creation of 12 much larger bodies.

Surrey PCC Lisa Townsend said it would be "a complete disaster" for the county, Kent's Mathew Scott described the plan as "faceless and soulless", while Sussex's Katy Bourne raised concerns about putting power in the hands of too few people.

Mahmood told the House of Commons she also intends to make better use of technology - including the "largest-ever rollout of facial recognition".

"This government's reforms will ensure we have the right policing in the right place," Mahmood said.

Writing on social media, Townsend said: "We are the safest county in South East England, with no city and much lower serious crime rates than our neighbours.

"Resources would be pulled away from our communities to support higher crime areas such as Dover, Southampton and Reading, leaving Surrey with a second-rate service.

"Communities deserve better than this two-tier policing plan."

A new National Police Service, which Mahmood dubbed a "British FBI", would focus on counter-terror, organised crime and fraud, led by a commissioner.

Bourne told the BBC: "Concentrating all those powers in one politician's hands and one super cop goes against the whole operational independence that we have, that we are the envy of the world on."

While Scott said: "When you are policing such wide areas I worry what that could mean for more isolated communities.

"All of these resources being drawn to the centre means less focus on local policing.

"If you lose that local connection it will become faceless, it will become soulless".

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