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This confirms that the Conservatives remain fully on track to deliver on their manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 more police officers by 2023.

That’s great news for our communities, for our safety, and locally for tackling our key priorities here in Mansfield.

Here in Mansfield, we've doubled the size of the response team.

They are the ones who respond to 999 calls, as well as adding additional neighbourhood officers in the community too.

I went to visit the sergeant in charge of operation reacher, Sgt Lee, to find out more about what his new team of neighbourhood officers is set to do, and was really pleased to learn about the impact it’s been having already.

Operation Reacher is a team of officers assigned just to local neighbourhood priorities, who are working with the existing local teams in communities to tackle some of the long term priorities that we face.

This team isn’t led by what calls come over the radio like most officers, but is instead able to invest time and effort in to the issues that residents raise and focus on them for a longer period.

Issues like drugs and anti-social behaviour have been on the radar, for example, and officers are able to really get to grips with the core of the issue in a specific area, rather than reacting to an emergency and then leaving again.

This can only be good news for our communities.

Being tough on law and order was a key promise in the 2019 election, and these new officers were one of our key commitments.

We live in unprecedented times and face may challenges, most of which are not easy to manage, but here is an example of getting something right.

I back our police 100 per cent in the work they do for our communities, which is why I’ve pushed Government to introduce a police covenant that commits to supporting their welfare behind the scenes.

I’ll keep calling on Government to deliver the strong message on crime, along with the resources and support we need to get this right for our area.

Ben Bradley is MP for Mansfield.

Mansfield MP hails success of police recruitment drive