Lincolnshire PCC says police force mergers would shortchange rural areas

Jones, the PCC for Lincolnshire, said the proposed consolidation, which he argued would not benefit the county's residents, would siphon officers away from places like Skegness, Spalding and Horncastle. He warned that a chief constable based in Nottingham, Leicester or Derby and focused on major East Midlands crime would leave those communities less safe, not more.

The merger idea came from Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley last week. He wants the current 43 forces replaced by eight to 10 larger ones, arguing the present setup is heading for failure. In a speech last Friday he said the system is straining against organised crime groups, fraud networks, cyber-criminals and online child abuse rings that increasingly cross regional and international borders. In his words, 43 overstretched forces are trying to do too much with too little.

Rowley's case rests on cutting duplication and freeing up thousands of roles for front-line policing. In January, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood unveiled a blueprint to overhaul what she called the broken policing model in England and Wales, creating a new National Police Service for the most complex cross-border crime and potentially cutting local forces by about two-thirds.

Jones isn't buying the savings pitch. He told BBC Radio Lincolnshire that urban centres draw resources time and again, leaving big rural areas like Lincolnshire with the tough end of the deal. Bigger force areas, he said, would also complicate recruitment because officers may be posted far from home.

He called it a fallacy to frame the plan as a money-saver, arguing the real issue is that policing isn't funded enough nationally. Larger forces, he predicted, would mirror the Met's structure, with one chief constable and more highly paid assistant chief constables covering bigger areas. His take: the problem isn't how the policing cake is sliced, it's that the cake isn't big enough, and ministers need to fund it if they're serious.

The Home Office defended the plans on Friday. A spokesperson said the current model of policing has not changed since the 1960s and is no longer fit for purpose.