A Criminal Misuse of Public Money?

Disclaimer - All views are my own, as this is written on my own website, paid for with my own money - These are NOT the views of any Council that I am a member of or a view of the Liberal Democrat Party. They are simply written as a personal view of a Rayleigh Resident. Hope I've got the point across.... There is an idea by the Police & Fire Crime Commissioner, that town and parish councils could now 'buy' their own Special Police Constables, to police their local area. Each 'Special' would cost the council (or taxpayer) £1000. This is an idea that has been put to Rayleigh Town Council. The role of the 'special' is something like this Call me cynical, but isn't this just another way to extract additional money out of the taxpayer? We already have community policing teams, that are paid for from our council tax and the PFCC is now asking if we are willing to pay more in our council tax to increase policing. So it's a double ask. The town and parish councils have to find the money from somewhere, right? If we are so hell-bent on having additional policing, I think someone has missed a trick here. With some crude calculations, I worked out that the £135,000 that has been spent by the district on new public toilets and the £20,000 estimated from the town council to maintain them, then this could have funded 155 special constables for 1 year. Or over the 10 year lease of the toilets, around 15 specials for 10 years. Each special averages 40 hours per month, so on this basis it would have provided funding for around 4 FULL TIME specials for Rayleigh for the next 10 years. Did we have a choice? No, because we weren't asked. Could, therefore, new toilets be a criminal misuse of public money? Specials play an important role in the police service, and if you are interested in becoming a special you can find full details on the Essex police website here