You’ve probably already received your polling card for the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner election and now the nominations have been revealed, it’s time to start thinking about who you want to vote for.
Okay, we’ll admit that it’s not quite as exciting as the EU or Britain’s Got Talent but according to Brighton and Hove news, the turnout for the last vote was only 15.3%. This means that less than 200,000 voters took part in the poll out of more than 1.2 million registered electors. Like we said, it’s not exciting, but it does affect us and whoever gets elected is there for four years, which is quite a long time if you really hate them. There are five candidates who are battling it out to maintain “an efficient and effective police force” in Sussex. The current Conservative Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne is running again and faces opposition from Crawley councillor Michael Jones, who is standing for Labour, Liberal Democrat James Walsh, Worthing councillor James Doyle for the Greens and UKIP candidate Patrick Lowe, who is based in Brighton and Hove.
The Police and Crime Commissioner role was set up four years ago as a replacement for the police authority. The candidate’s statements which outline their aims and proposals will be online at www.choosemypcc.org.uk website in a few days. You can also download a candidate information booklet or order the booklet by post by telephoning 0800 1 070708. If you haven’t registered to vote yet you have until the end of today (11th April) to ensure that you are registered by May 5th, when the voting will take place. If you haven’t registered to vote you can do so here.
Holly Martin
feature image: EDDIE via the Creative Commons license
