CLEVELAND Police and Crime Commissioner, Barry Coppinger, has just hit council tax payers with an inflation-busting 5.59 per cent increase, and he still demands more Government money for his force.

But, Cleveland Police still has nearly 1,300 officers, meaning it has a greater ratio of officers to residents than almost any other force in the land.

The root causes of Barry’s problems are historical and structural.

Cleveland Constabulary makes no sense, being a remnant of a defunct Cleveland County, and not even coterminous with that more recent invention, “the Tees Valley”. To add insult to injury, the history of our police force, over the last two decades, has been punctuated with humiliating crisis after humiliating crisis.

Besides, in these times of financial austerity, the Cleveland Police area is too small to provide a tip-top service.

Hopefully, the recently opened, £3m-plus North-East Regional Crime Prevention Centre is the harbinger of a super North-East Constabulary, preferably including North Yorkshire.

Then we can benefit from the economies of scale and have to pay for just one, ridiculously expensive and unnecessary, Police and Crime Commissioner.

Cllr Steve Kay (Ind), Moorsholm