'I am serious about tackling violent crime' says new West Midlands PCC

Labour's Simon Foster has been elected as the next West Midlands' Police and Crime Commissioner.

He got 301,406 votes, after first and second preference ballots were counted.

He'll officially takeover the role on Thursday (13 May) from David Jamieson who's stepping down.

Before that happens and on his first Monday in the office, we sat down with the PCC-elect to talk about his priorities and how he's going to tackle an "explosion" of violent crime:

How do you feel about being elected?

I was very pleased with the outcome, I'm very privileged and very honored to have been elected by the people and communities of the West Midlands.

What's your first day been like?

I've had a meeting with the Chief Constable in order to discuss the priorities set out during the course of my campaign, one of those is community policing and in particular the key pledge I had to have 450 extra community police officers out on the streets of the West Midlands.

How will that work?

We are due to have a net police uplift between 2020 and 2023, in the sum of 1200 police officers and I will be planning to ensure we have 450 of that allocated to community policing.

How can you guarantee that will happen?

It's a funded, costed pledge.

Is more officers on our streets important?

Yes, it came through loud and clear throughout the campaign that people wanted proactive, preventative, problem solving, visible community police officers out on the streets, that's why we focused on that pledge during the campaign.

How will you tackle the rise in violent crime?

It's a huge matter of public concern, it's a huge matter of concern for me, it was one of my campaign key priorities and it will be a priority in the Police and Crime Plan. Community policing is part of the answer but we need to rebuild youth services, youth services were disproportionately cut throughout the West Midlands, 82%, we need to rebuild youth services, we need to put youth workers back in neighborhoods, and that' certainly part of the answer as well.

How will you work with the Chief Constable on this?

We need to work with the Chief Constable about community policing, but it's not just for the police, we need a joined up working, most importantly we need to be working with the communities. We won't solve these problems on our own.

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