Fight to Save the Royal Parks Police

In November, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner announced that due to a shortfall in funding, 2,300 officers may need to be cut, with the Royal Parks Police, including Richmond Park and Bushy Park's shared unit, at risk of being scrapped.

Your Liberal Democrat councillors have voiced their concerns over the potential loss of the Royal Parks Police.

Council Leader and London Assembly Member, Cllr Gareth Roberts, said, “The Royal Parks Police are not a ‘nice to have’, they are an integral part of keeping Richmond Safe. Abolishing the Royal Parks Police would mean that an area of roughly 3600 acres, or 14.5KM2, would be largely unpoliced. This would inevitably make this borough, and the parks in particular, less safe.”

Residents believe that losing it could bring intolerable pressures to local policing, comprising the safety of the over 7 million annual visitors to Richmond Park and Bushy Park.

Cllr Julia Cambridge, a member of the Safer Parks Police Panel, has started a publicly backed petition. She explained, “We started the petition to send a strong message to the Home Office that local people wanted a re-think. We are urgently calling on them to adequately fund the MET police. Successive governments have starved the police service to the bone” 

You can sign our petition at trlibdems.org.uk/our-campaigns/richmonds-parks-police