West Yorkshire Police still gets £26m less

3.35.25pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 26th Jan 2005

Fair funding would pay for 924 extra police offices

Councillor Howard Middleton has pressed the new Home Secretary to increase the money given to the West Yorkshire Police to the average for all Metropolitan Forces by sending his latest collection of signatures on the Liberal Democrat's long running petition.

Average funding would give the Force £26m more to pay for an extra 924 police officers.

He said

"The reply does not answer the main point of the petition, that West Yorkshire Police still receive less funding from the Government than other Metropolitan Police forces such as Greater Manchester or Merseyside.

The Home Office does not even try to defend their indefensible position but just repeats a series of figures about how funding has increased over all police authorities.

I will continue to challenge West Yorkshire police on their level of performance which was categorised as 'poor' in 2003 but the case is harder to make when the can cite the low level of funding in their defence."