Local people frequently tell Tom that they feel the police are almost invisible in Telford. Apart from community support officers, they rarely see a police officer on foot patrol - only when they whiz past in a patrol car.
“But that’s little wonder,” explains Tom. “Our local police officers are under great pressure, partly due to unfair government funding.”
Tom has recently acquired figures that expose the government’s under-funding of West Mercia Police, which is the fourth lowest funded Police Authority in the country. As a result, in Wolverhampton there is one police officer for every 307 members of the public, but in Telford that figure is one police officer for every 475 people.
To put it another way, there are nearly 60% more police officers for Wolverhampton, just 20 miles down the road, than for Telford, due to unfair government funding.
“What we need to get more police on the streets of Telford is far better funding - and that’s what I am fighting for,” says Tom.
