Letter: More police funding needed to keep communities safe
I was sad to read about the vandalism at The Chancel Drive play area in Market Drayton.
What drives people to act in such a manner, depriving innocent children of a safe sanctuary to play and mums and dads of a meeting area to socialise, bringing community cohesion.
Recently, at the Market Drayton Town Council Public Meeting, I was heckled by Labour activists when I brought up the subject, concerning the lack of full-time uniformed police on our streets.
This was after our car had been vandalised during the recent European elections. The police were very sympathetic, but once more we ended up another statistic.
I am not in any way saying the police do not act in our best interests. On the contrary, when we are running away from an incident, they attend it, putting themselves in harm's way to protect us.
But it seems we need to look at police funding in order to protect our citizens and our community.
After all, it is our right to be protected by the state and we do pay the full costs for this service.
To exacerbate the situation here in Market Drayton, we have a virtually brand new police station, but which is not open to the general public. Total madness.
Whatever motive someone had for vandalising the play area, I believe that if we had a stronger police presence in the area, costing more, the benefits would outweigh the damage and the time spent investigating crimes, which probably would not have occurred if a deterrent was there in the first instance.
Neil Jukes, Chairman, Shropshire UKIP, Chairman, North Shropshire UKIP, WMRC Treasurer
