March 22, 2016 9.00 am This story is over 101 months old

Don’t take a knife to our Lincolnshire Police

The recent spate of knife-point robberies in and around Lincoln has shocked everyone in the city, not least me: one of the crimes, at the Sainsbury’s Local on Carholme Road, was just a few minutes’ walk from where I live. As we know, the police are currently undertaking investigations into the robberies. At the time…

The recent spate of knife-point robberies in and around Lincoln has shocked everyone in the city, not least me: one of the crimes, at the Sainsbury’s Local on Carholme Road, was just a few minutes’ walk from where I live.

As we know, the police are currently undertaking investigations into the robberies. At the time of writing, they believe that the crimes are not linked and that they could simply be ‘just coincidence’.

But whatever the circumstances or reasons for a crime, it’s always unnerving to know that a crime has taken place just a stone’s throw away from your door. It’s certainly given me pause for thought when I nip to my local shop.

According to 2015 figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), incidents involving knives and other sharp weapons across the whole of the UK have risen by 2%. Some people have put this down to changes in the way that crime is recorded but ONS officials have pointed to the rise being part of a trend.

Lincolnshire is a relatively safe place to live and work. Clearly, one of the reasons for this is the work of our police force in keeping us safe. Whether it’s PCSOs patrolling our streets or their investigations after a crime has taken place, our police work hard to fight crime.

But if nothing else, the recent robberies have shown that we cannot be complacent: it’s important that we have a fully funded, well resourced police force.

There must be no more cuts to police in Lincolnshire. We need a fairer funding formula for our county so that our officers are given the best possible training and resources to fight crime. Everyone deserves to feel safe and secure in the streets around their homes.

Our police can make that happen but they need the financial support to allow them to do their jobs. We need to cut crime, not police.

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Lucinda Preston is the Labour Party candidate for the 2016 Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner. She has lived in Lincoln all of her life and is the Head of English and Associate Assistant Headteacher at a school in Sleaford.