WITH reference to the article headlined “Residents voting to pay more in support of police services” (D&S Times, Jan 6), why are you carrying a report on a survey which is still running? Perhaps it is because the public interest in this survey is almost nil.

The first sentence states that seven out of ten residents want to pay more for policing in North Yorkshire, but fast forward to the last paragraph where we learn that it is actually 63 per cent of residents in favour.

Buried in between, we learn that 400 people have replied. I don’t pretend to know the number of people in North Yorkshire who pay council tax but I’m certain it’s far more than 400.

If North Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan thinks this survey gives her a mandate to increase the policing precept I would respectfully suggest she thinks again.

The bottom line is this: central government has cut policing to the extent that for many in rural areas it may as well not exist. To now ask those people to shore up the system by an increase in the policing precept is disgusting.

If anyone thinks this will restore pre-austerity levels of policing it won’t, it will merely offset some of the cuts already made and do nothing for the cuts that are to come.

Timothy Wood, Guisborough