Plans to create an elected Mayor for the different Yorkshire Counties known as One Yorkshire should not be used as grab opportunity to merge North Yorkshire Police with West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and even Humberside Police says North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commission Candidate.
Philip Allott who is the Conservative Candidate for the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner election on 7 May 2020, is meeting urgently with Policing Minister Kit Malthouse to discuss the issue.
Mr Allott fears that local policing will become a thing of the past if force mergers take place and would result in large numbers of North Yorkshire officers being redeployed to Sheffield, Leeds and Bradford, which would leave behind an opportunity for criminals to run riot.
Philip Allot said:
The policing needs of North Yorkshire are totally different to those of large cities like Sheffield and Leeds and nothing must jeopardise this, ultimately policing must always be about providing a local and bespoke service. The policing of cities is totally different to those of North Yorkshire, England’s largest rural county, which covers a massive 3,200 square miles.
Whilst I fully support police forces sharing resources where this makes commercial sense, merging the forces would be an expensive distraction to crime fighting and would do nothing to improve policing. One only has to look at the NHS or probation service where substantial public money has been thrown at structural changes, but it has made little difference to the services and arguably some of them have gone backwards.
The Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) election will take place in North Yorkshire on Thursday the 7th May 2020. The Conservative Candidate is Philip Allott who is campaigning for total police transparency and believes that the role of the new PFCC must be totally independent from the police and therefore should not be held by any former serving officer.
- Philip is Yorkshire born and bred and was educated at King James’ School Knaresborough, and later studied law in Leeds, graduating as an LLB. Hons. He is the managing director of Allott and Associates Ltd a specialist PR and B2B marketing agency, which he founded in 1993 and which now operates internationally. Philip is also a qualified GDPR practitioner and a non-executive director of HMCA PLC.
- He is married to Sandra and they have a grownup son and daughter plus grandson. Philip is the author of ‘The Donkeyman’ which is a time capsule on a bygone North Yorkshire era.
- After serving in the TA Philip began his political career in Knaresborough where at the age of just 25 he was elected the Country’s youngest Mayor. Philip’s political experience includes nine years as a senior Harrogate District Councillor, where he chaired a number of committees and subsequently became leader of the Conservative Group. He stood for Parliament in 2015 and got within 428 votes of winning.
- Philip supports the Turn Trust which helps homeless people and also serves on a regional Trust and a number of Yorkshire committees.
