Wera Continues Crime Campaign

2.14.50pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 3rd Oct 2007

Heywood and Middleton Parliamentary Candidate Wera Hobhouse is continuing her fight against crime by giving her full support to Liberal Democrat MP Mark Hunter's new " Target 10,000" campaign. Councillor Wera Hobhouse who was at the North West Liberal Democrat Regional Conference over the weekend, fully backed Mark Hunter MP's call for an extra 10,000 police across the country and has "urged constituents to sign up and get behind the campaign."

In his keynote speech to conference Mark Hunter MP said, "Time and money that could have been spent on front-line policing was wasted last year on Labour's half-baked, and now abandoned, attempts to merge Police forces in Cheshire and Merseyside, and, Cumbria and Lancashire."

"It's no wonder that the people of the North West region are worried and angry that Gordon Brown's Labour Government are being soft on crime in the North West whilst London's streets are seeing neighbourhood policing teams of 6 Police Officers allocated to each Council Ward. We don't see anything like that number of Officers specifically earmarked for our North West Council Wards, and yet, in far too many parts of the region crime levels are unacceptably high."

Councillor Hobhouse said, "Under this Labour Government, Greater Manchester Police force has seen a reduction of more than 200 Police officers and that is simply unacceptable. What is even worse is our local Labour MP's including Jim Dobbin have done nothing to stop these cuts to our vital services."

"As the Liberal Democrat candidate for Heywood and Middleton I know how important the issue of crime is to our residents. Already I have fought for longer opening hours at our police stations, for more police on our streets and I was delighted to present hundreds of your petitions to Number 10, Downing Street. I will continue the fight against crime for the people of Heywood and Middleton and that is why I fully support Mark Hunter MP's campaign and would urge residents to sign up so that we can get the policing Heywood and Middleton deserves."