Stuart Anderson MP championed the need to deliver safer and cleaner high streets across South Shropshire as he took part in a Westminster Hall Debate on town centre safety.
Stuart's intervention follows his Shop Local Survey, through which residents shared the importance of improving the atmosphere of local high streets and boosting public safety.
Stuart Anderson MP said:
"In their responses to my Shop Local Survey, hundreds of residents raised with me the importance of improving the atmosphere of our high streets and improving public safety. However, shoplifting and robbery has surged under Labour while thousands of police officers have been removed from keeping law and order on our streets. It means that Labour is asking businesses and communities to cope with more crime while imposing higher taxes at the same time. Only the Conservative Party has a hard-edged plan to tackle surging rural crime rates by recruitng an extra ten thousand police officers."
Town Centre Safety
More than four thousand people responded to Stuart's Shop Local Survey, with the results showing great affection and appetite to support local high streets and town centres.
However, it also found that many residents would like to see tangible improvements to the atmosphere of our local high streets and town centres.
Last year, Stuart welcomed the Safer Streets Summer Initiative, which ran in over 500 town centres including Ludlow and Bridgnorth.
When the initiative ended in September, Stuart urged Ministers to reinstate the Safer Streets Fund which the previous Conservative government had created.
The scheme saw more than £150 million invested in over 400 crime prevention projects in communities across the country between 2021 and 2024.
In correspondence with Stuart, Home Office Ministers ruled this option out, adding that a ‘Winter of Action’ would see the police work with local communities to clamp down on shop theft and street crime.
However, South Shropshire was not included in the list of locations that was published on the Home Office website on 8th December 2025.
Subsequently, Stuart called for longer term support to make a real difference in rural communities and to tackle tool theft, which has sadly surged in recent years.
Policing Reforms
The government has also announced plans to merge the existing 43 existing police forces into just 12. The changes are expected to take eight years to implement.
Stuart has said that the top-down reforms will erode vital connections between police and local areas, with rural communities like South Shropshire being policed by central Birmingham.
The government was also elected on a manifesto committed to tackling anti-social behaviour and delivering 13,000 new police officers in neighbourhoods across the country.
However, it subsequently emerged that only 3,000 would be newly recruited officers. Another 3,000 will come from internal workforce reshuffling.
The remaining 7,000 will be recruited from Polcie Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and volunteer special constables.
Figures released on Wednesday 28th January have shown that the number of police officers in England and Wales has dropped by more than 1,300 in just 12 months.
This is equivalent to more than three officers being lost every day. The number is now 2,000 below the peak reached in 2024. The number of PCSOs has also fallen by over 200.
It comes as the latest official statistics reveal that shoplifting offences have increased by five per cent while robbery of business property has surged by a shocking 66 per cent.
Stuart is supporting the Conservative Party's Plan to make a dedicated share of ten thousand new recruits available to rural communities, backed by £800 million in extra funding.
