Warning to Government as crime in Greater Manchester continues to rise

Councillor Aasim Rashid

Rochdale councillor Aasim Rashid, the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester’s deputy portfolio holder on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, has hit out at the Government for cutting police numbers as crime continues to rise across Greater Manchester.

Statistics released by the Home Office show a huge jump of more than a third in Greater Manchester’s recorded crime figures over the past year (to December 2017). Whilst about half the increase is down to new rules about how crime is recorded, it still means a substantial increase in real crimes that affect the public.

It follows years of cuts to Greater Manchester Police and other agencies involved in community safety. Over the past eight years, more than 2,000 police officers have been cut from GMP, with its budget slashed by a quarter.

The statistics show increases across the majority of crime types including sexual offences and violent crime.

Councillor Rashid, said: “Vicious cuts have been made to police since 2010 when Theresa May was Home Secretary and now Prime Minister, which clearly has detrimental effects on neighbourhood policing and community safety. 

“The Conservative government's behaviour is atrocious, especially towards Greater Manchester where we have high deprivation and child poverty. Instead of giving more budget to this vital service to prevent crime, they are more interested to run their coalition government, where they have funded 10 billion pounds towards DUP to fulfill their greed to remain in power. 

“It is vital that we keep our streets safe; we need more police officers to be seen in our neighbourhood.

“Anti-social behaviour, hate crime, Islamophobic issues, vandalism, organised crime and drug related crimes need to be addressed at a high priority. We need to work in partnership with social care and mental health to overcome basic street crime.

“The government needs to take these matters very seriously. They have to increase our council neighbourhood and policing budget to strengthen community cohesion and integration. The Conservatives have to put the safety of communities first before the greed of power.”