By Tim Farron

Published at 14:39, Thursday, 15 November 2012

I HOPE that by the time you read this many of you will have voted in the election for the Cumbrian Police Commissioner.

Tim Farron

In case you did not realise, the election is taking place today, November 15, and polling stations will be open until 10pm.

Whatever you feel about the rights and wrongs of this new position the fact of the matter is that whoever is elected will be responsible for setting the objectives for policing in Cumbria over the next over the next four-and-a-half years. They will be the person who sets the priorities for the Chief Constable for Cumbria to follow. It is a position with real power.

As such, if you care at all about crime in this area, the way it is dealt with, the amount of police you see out on the street, the division of resources between the north and south of the county, you simply must vote. If you don’t then you really only have yourself to blame if you find that policing is not working in the way you would like.

I am sorry to be so blunt about this but there has been lot in the press about how low the turnout will be for this election, and it worries me that a lot of people who care about crime are not going to exercise what is a very important vote about an issue they think is very important.

I know mid-November is not the best time to hold an election but this is when it is and the next opportunity will not be until May (a much better time of year to go out and vote) 2016. So please, if you have not yet been to your polling station then dig out your polling card and pop along there now.

If you feel that you do not know enough about the candidates, as many people have told me, there are several places you can go to on the internet. As good a place as any is the Evening Mail website which ran its own live webchat but you can also go to the Choose my PCC website (http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk) where you simply have to enter your postcode and all your candidates will come up.

I will be out today rushing around encouraging people to get out and vote, if I turn up on your doorstep or ring you up then the best response you can give me is to say that you have already voted.

Cumbria is continually one of the areas of the country that takes voting seriously with high turnouts at all elections. I hope this remains the case today.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk