Mayor Thinks Rural Policing Would be Threatened by Yorkshire Police Merger Plans

Plans to merge existing police constabularies into a single Yorkshire-wide force will drain vital policing resources away from rural communities and into large urban centres, North Yorkshire's mayor has warned.

Rural police officers will be swallowed up by large cities if government plans to merge local constabularies into a single Yorkshire-wide force go ahead according to York and North Yorkshire Mayor, David Skaith.

The Mayor says he believes vital neighbourhood policing resources will drain away from countryside communities and into urban centres like Leeds, Sheffield, and Bradford under the proposed restructure.

York and North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith confirmed his strong opposition to the merger, warning that the unique expertise required for rural policing will be lost entirely within a massive regional organisation.

The government announced plans in January to consolidate the 43 existing police forces across England and Wales into fewer, larger regional bodies. The current policing structure has remained largely untouched since 1974, and features several smaller forces with roughly 1,000 officers.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has argued that larger regional forces will be far better equipped to undertake the specialist investigations needed to tackle complex modern offences, such as online fraud and organised crime.

However, the independent review into the restructuring, led by former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe, has been forced to delay its findings until the autumn.

The delay follows widespread concern from regional leaders that the new policing boundaries would fail to match up with existing combined authorities, severely complicating the government's devolution agenda.

Mayor David Skaith said:

"I've been very clear that I don't want to see that happen. I know there's been talk about a Yorkshire wide force, and Yorkshire mayors including myself are not supportive of it.

My concern is around the rural policing element and how that would just get swallowed up into the bigger urban areas. So, that's where obviously if we were a big force we would just get pulled into that Leeds and Sheffield and Bradford and that community, neighbourhood, rural policing would get lost and it is a very different expertise that is needed there."

Local leaders fear that a sweeping regional approach will completely fail to recognise the specific daily challenges faced by rural communities.

North Yorkshire Council's leader, Councillor Carl Les, told a full council meeting in July that rural areas will face disproportionate competition for resources against larger towns and cities, where demand is often much more visible.

He warned that crimes affecting farming communities, local businesses, and heritage sites require a locally informed response that will be significantly weakened by a larger regional model.

Councillor Les highlighted agricultural theft, livestock offences, damage to heritage assets, and fly-tipping as prime examples of crimes that demand a distinct, tailored policing approach. He also cautioned that existing local partnerships, including community safety groups and the Local Resilience Forum, could be undermined by the loss of trusted local relationships.

Despite the fierce pushback against a full structural merger, officials do acknowledge that some level of national collaboration is absolutely necessary to combat modern crime trends.

Mayor David Skaith said:

"There are certainly some calls for sharing of services and support and things like that. Absolutely in times when we all don't need all the same capacity all the time.

We know that an overwhelming majority of crimes now for example are committed online, so improving our online policing presence. That's an amalgamation across the whole country, isn't it? Because that's not necessarily aligned to an individual police force.

But certainly, officers on the beat, on the ground, that kind of thing. I don't want to see it, and I say particular feel of it all, lose that raw nature of what policing is in an area like ours. So there is a lot of concerns. But there's been there has been a lot of pushback from all mayors and the previous mayor of Greater Manchester as well."

The independent review continues to gather evidence, with North Yorkshire Council recently submitting the authority's formal response to the proposals.

The final report on the new police force structure will now be delivered later this year, as officials attempt to align the dramatic reforms with regional devolution boundaries.