“Tory hypocrisy on PCSOs is breathtaking” Cllr Brendan Glynane

The Leader of the Official Liberal Democrat Opposition at County Hall, Cllr Brendan Glynane, has today slammed the Conservatives for going back on manifesto promises to provide funding for PCSOs in Northamptonshire.

In 2005 Northamptonshire Conservatives put “more visible policing” in their top priority for the elections to the County Council and pledged “we will provide resources for 60 more visible police support officers across the County”.

In 2009 Northamptonshire Conservatives pledged to continue “our financial support of 500k for providing extra PCSOs”.

Despite this the Conservative administrations at County Hall and the Borough Council are pledging to now cut this funding, and senior Conservatives, including the MP for Northampton North are piling pressure on to the Police to pay for these PCSOs.

Cllr Brendan Glynane commented “The Conservatives hypocrisy on PCSOs is absolutely breathtaking. Here we have a party that ran not one, but two, election campaigns with the funding of PCSOs by the Council as a central part of their platform. Now they are saying that their manifestos were not worth the paper they were written on. They letting people who voted for them down.”

“It is incredible that the Conservative MP for Northampton North has waded into this debate, calling for local people to contact their Councillors. Why doesn’t he just pick up the phone to his Conservative colleague – the man who wrote the 2009 manifesto, who also happens to be the Councillor who proposed the PCSO cuts at the County, and is now the Leader of the Borough Council, and talk to him?”

“The Conservatives want the Police Authority to foot the bill for their manifesto pledges! They have absolutely no shame whatsoever. The attempts to deflect attention away from the Conservatives’ own cuts to frontline policing, in direct opposition to their manifesto pledges, are nothing short of a disgrace. They are taking Northampton’s residents for fools. I doubt very much whether local people will accept this slap in the face from Northamptonshire Conservatives”