Rural crime: the CLA on the beat

The CLA’s ongoing relationship with police forces across England and Wales is crucial in ensuring members concerns are heard and criminal activity in the countryside is acted upon promptly.

CLA East Regional Adviser Andrew Marriott recently spent the day with the Cambridgeshire Police Rural Crime Action Team (RCAT) to maintain strong working relationships with rural officers and to better understand the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis.

During the day, Andrew raised some of the issues CLA members face on a regular basis with the RCAT. From hare coursing, which is likely to see incidents increase again post-harvest, through to GPS thefts, livestock worrying, fly-tipping, rural burglaries and more.

Sergeant Tom Nuttall, who heads up the RCAT, also highlighted the importance of everyone reporting crimes when they occur, no matter how big or small. This helps officers to understand trends and where criminality is most common and enables them to target resources in those areas. Also, importantly, it allows them to demonstrate why investment in both officers and equipment is necessary when it comes to setting future budgets.

A CLA Freedom of Information (FOI) request recently found that many counties have no dedicated rural officers, ringfenced police funding, or forces with basic kit such as torches. The CLA approached 36 police forces in rural areas across England and Wales, in total, 20 forces responded.

Cambridgeshire is one of the better resourced constabularies with a rural crime team of more than 10 officers. But even with this level of investment, patrolling a county that is largely rural is a real challenge. The phase ‘finding a needle in a haystack’ comes to mind.

In the run up to the election the CLA launched its six ‘missions’ documents which were designed to influence political party manifestos. One of these documents focused on rural crime and lists some of the actions the CLA would like to see from government if this important issue is going to be taken seriously.

Encouragingly, the Labour Party responded by pledging to establish a rural crime strategy and to invest in increased rural patrols. The prime minister cited new research commissioned by Labour from the House of Commons Library that reveals the crime rate in rural areas has surged by 32% since 2011 - compared to 24% for urban areas - with a total rise of almost 130,000 reported offences.

It is now important that through the CLA’s policy and influencing work – these pledges become reality and were not hollow words to win over voters in the run up to the election.

We know that rural crime remains a constant menace for many of our members. The government must empower the police, the courts and rural communities to fight crime and ensure the issue remains a priority.

The CLA will certainly be keeping it high on the agenda.