SURREY Police and Crime Commissioner David Munro has pledged to focus on the county’s rising crime rates “going forwards”.

The former Farnham councillor reported an overall rise in recorded crime across the county of 14 per cent in his annual report for the last financial year,

A key priority is improving the response time to 101 non-emergency calls.

Mr Munro said it was clear when he took office people were “having to wait far too long to get through” and it was an “unacceptable situation”.

He reported the average time taken to respond to 95 per cent of 101 calls was now within nine minutes, rather than 15 minutes.

Mr Munro noted figures provided for how safe residents believe their town centre are, still remain a cause for concern.

Specific mention was made of Surrey County Council’s decision to switch off the street lights on a number of roads in the early hours as a contributing factor. Noting the 84.3 per cent of residents surveyed who said they feel safe walking alone in their neighbourhood at night, Mr Munro claimed it was still not good enough.

Another area that has caused particular concern for residents over the last 12 months has been a spike in burglaries. Mr Munro said he had raised this issue with the force, “who have been fighting back on a number of fronts by targeting resources at identifying, disrupting, catching and convicting offenders”.

Mr Munro added: “I believe much has been achieved over the last 12 months – the force has a stable top team under the chief constable and we have provided a more secure financial basis for the future.

“I was pleased to see the high levels of confidence and satisfaction people have in Surrey Police being maintained while ‘good’ ratings were also secured across the board in the inspections carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Police and Fire and Rescue Services.

“There is always lots of room for improvement of course – we have seen rising crime rates in many areas and although this is following the national trend, it is a particular area we must concentrate on going forward.

“Our police officers and staff face difficult, challenging and often dangerous situations on a daily basis and my thanks go to all those who work for Surrey Police for their professionalism, dedication and achievements over the last year.”

The past year has seen the creation of two new joint enforcement teams, one of those in Waverley, in addition to the three already in place in the county.

The initiative gets police and local councils working together to tackle issues such as noise, fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour.