Just 1% of North Yorkshire Police officers dedicated to tackling rural crime
North Yorkshire Police has just 18 officers dedicated to rural crime across the whole county, it can be revealed, which make up only 1 per cent of the force overall.
The Country Land and Business Association said that criminals often feel “emboldened by lack of police presence in isolated rural communities, leaving families, farmers and business owners feeling vulnerable and powerless”.
The revelations came as part of a series of freedom of information requests from the Liberal Democrats, which found that just 0.4 per cent of police in England and Wales are part of rural crime teams.
These revealed wildly differing levels of police dedicated to tackling the scourge of rural crime across the country.
While neighbouring Cumbria has 117 officers and staff focused on rural crime, North Yorkshire Police has just a sixth of this.
The force’s Rural Crime Task Force is made up of an inspector, two sergeants, seven police constables, seven PCSOs and a rural crime coordinator.
This is around 1 per cent of North Yorkshire’s 1,652 officers, when calculated by full-time equivalents, and even less when compared to the 2,829 officers and staff which serve the county.
Johnnie Furse, external affairs spokesperson at the Countryside Alliance, said: “The fact that more than a third of North Yorkshire’s population live in sparse or super-sparse rural areas, and yet only 1 per cent of North Yorkshire Police’s officers are dedicated to tackling rural crime, shows that there is a dire need for increased police support for rural areas in North Yorkshire.
“If it is possible for Cumbria to have more than a hundred dedicated rural crime officers in their smaller and less populated county, then it is surely both possible, and also necessary, for us to have significantly more police officers dedicated to rural crime on our side of the Pennines.”
While Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: “For too long, our countryside has been plagued by rural crime, from hare coursing to livestock theft.
“This data reveals an ongoing and shocking neglect of our rural communities when it comes to dealing with these crimes.
“To have so few officers dedicated to tackling this issue is an utter disgrace.”
His party is calling for a new Countryside Copper Guarantee, which would see specialists embedded in every police force.
However CLA director north Harriet Ranson said: “Police forces are all too often inadequately resourced to investigate and prevent criminal activity in the countryside.”
She added: “We are eagerly awaiting the government’s pre-election pledge to publish a dedicated Rural Crime Strategy to tackle the underfunding of rural police forces.”
North Yorkshire Supt Michael Roffe said: “The Rural Task Force team have developed close links with the community – we talk to local residents and businesses, so we can understand the issues that impact them the most.
“That means we can respond flexibly and proactively, whether it’s mounting extra patrols, hosting crime prevention events or offering advice and support to victims.”
Current initiatives include Operation Walrus, which aims to reduce the theft of agricultural GPS devices, and Operation Spotlight, which deals with the challenge of quadbike thefts.
The force added that rural crime is also dealt with by other teams.