Council to hold referendum for private police

Members of the Selston Parish Independents put a motion to a meeting of the council last Tuesday to as people of the parish if they want additional extra security on the streets of Selston

Independent councillor Gail Turner said: “We are doing this because the police presence is very thin.

“We feel we are getting precious little protection.

“We hardly ever see anyone from the police force or protection officers.

“We have had chats with various agencies and private companies.

Coun Turner said the extra security would be added to the parish council precept and estimated the cost to be between 5-15p a day extra per person.

She said the Independents had approached private professional security companies to provide patrols on the streets and respond to incidents.

Coun turner added: “This will be solely for Selston parish and nowhere else. We have had anti-social behaviour, quite a lot of crime including burglaries..

“The people of the village came along and told us they are fed up . They have posed the question - what are we going to do?

“In addition Ashfield District Council is having a new strategy of community safety.

“They had an overview and scrutiny meeting about it in which our area is not included.

“We are having a referendum and if they say no it won’t happen. If they say yes we will take it from there and hopefully get a date for the referendum as soon as possible.

“We would not be the first council in the country to try this.”

More when we have it.