RURAL communities could lose out on Government funding to fight crime, a new report claims.

A study by the National Rural Crime Network, released today, said funding is mainly allocated by considering the number of crimes recorded in an area, which gives unfair advantage to urban areas.

Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire Julia Mulligan is also chair of the NRCN, and said this method will lead to rural forces missing out.

She said: “It’s like allocating NHS money on the basis of the number of people in an area with a cough and cold. The more people, the more coughs and colds, but in no way does this take into account the complexity of serving the public properly. It’s a crude way of looking at a complex issue and is clearly going to throw up an unfair result.”

Mrs Mulligan said she and other PCCs from rural areas would use the report, by researchers at Plymouth University, to put forward the case for funding in rural communities.

Prof Sheena Asthana led the research and said: “The Government’s approach appears to sacrifice fairness in pursuit of simplicity. We think a fresh start is needed and that any new approach needs to use a different methodology and draw on different data if it is to achieve a fair system for distributing funds.”

The report claims rural forces face higher costs when attended crime scenes, from antisocial behaviour to traffic collisions, through ‘plugging the gaps’ where health and social care services are stretched in isolated areas, and seasonal variations in incidents of crime, antisocial behaviour and crashes.

Mrs Mulligan said: “Demands on rural forces differ to those on urban forces and a funding formula is needed that reflects that variation.”