Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made tackling anti-social behaviour one of Labour’s top priorities at the Labour Party conference this week with a promise for 20-25 neighbourhood officers to patrol estates in Peterborough.

Nationally, Labour said it would bring back proper neighbourhood policing by putting 13,000 more police and PCSOs on our streets in community teams to keep residents safe.

This would mean an extra 20 to 25 neighbourhood police for Peterborough to help patrol and tackle anti-social behaviour in the city.

Anti-social behaviour, vandalism and fly-tipping have become major concerns on many estates in the city. Peterborough Labour has welcomed the new investment saying it will help reverse a trend of cuts both to police and council budgets over the last decade.

Andrew Pakes, Labour & Co-operative Parliamentary Candidate for Peterborough, commented:

“When it comes to anti-social behaviour, vandalism and fly-tipping, the public think that the government and council have just stopped trying. Government cuts have left the police overstretched and under-resourced.

“This isn’t just about the city centre. If residents don’t feel safe and secure where they live, we all lose out. We need a practical plan to get more officers back on the beat, looking after our city, just where they should be.”

Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper MP, added:

“We are announcing this week that we have got to return to neighbourhood policing. We have seen the clock hugely turned back on the policing in our communities that Labour brought in.

“This is about both expanding policing in our communities, but it’s also a reform because it’s about the way in which we police, if you’ve got police embedded in those communities, providing intelligence and working together”.