LABOUR councillors in South Gloucestershire have welcomed the reprieve of nine police officer posts despite the council needing to cut spending by £80 million.


Councillors are welcoming their success in proposing the reprieve of nine Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) posts that were earmarked to be cut this year.


South Gloucestershire Council is having to cut its spending by £80 million over the decade, and to implement those cuts councillors were faced with having to cut £277,000 from the council’s community safety and antisocial behaviour work from the financial year beginning in April 2015.


The council recently consulted on a range of options on what to cut to meet this savings target.
In addition to the PCSO cuts, alternative options included cutting domestic violence refuges, CCTV, street marshals and hate crime work.


Councillors were recommended to choose the PCSO option and wield the axe to the nine posts in a report that went to the council’s Communities Committee on Tuesday, January 27.


As part of the recent cross-party budget negotiations at the hung council, Labour proposed that none of the options should be pursued in the coming year.


This one-year fix has been agreed by the council’s political leaders.


The funds for this reprieve will come from blocking a planned increase in the money that the council’s local area forums were to receive for local projects.


Labour’s deputy leader, Councillor Ian Boulton, Staple Hill ward, said: “The scale of cuts that we are having to make is clearly exposed by the awful options put before us. Councillors have been told that crime has risen over the past six months, but our residents’ safety and sense of security is being put in danger by the Tory-led government’s budget squeeze.


“Our move is no more than a one-year fix, but a lot can happen in a year. What is certain is that if we lose this valued police support it would be very hard to get it back again, so we needed urgent action to safeguard it."


Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Kingswood, Jo McCarron, said: “The last Labour government created teams of police and community support officers in every neighbourhood across the country, working closely with residents to tackle the issues affecting their local community.


“It’s been disappointing to see so many of those PCSOs cut under this government, and particularly concerning to see our local PCSOs next in line. Hundreds of residents across the constituency have signed up to oppose these cuts.


“The Labour team has listened, and worked to protect the community safety budget this year. But sooner or later, cuts to community safety will come, and people’s fundamental right to feel safe in their community will be undermined, unless the government intervenes."