Humanitarian worker from Somerset's bid to become Green PCC

A woman whose work in humanitarian aid took her to Afghanistan, Chad, Somalia, and Cambodia is now hoping to take on the challenge of overseeing Avon and Somerset Police.

Now a councillor on Bristol City Council and a family court magistrate, Katy Grant is the Green candidate for Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner in the elections to the role on May 2. Ms Grant told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “For the great majority of my adult life I have been working in the humanitarian foreign aid sector.”

Her CV lists the UNHCR, UNICEF, and Save the Children among the organisations she has worked for. Before taking up the career, in which she focussed on child protection and violence against women and girls, she grew up on a farm in west Somerset.

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Ms Grant said: “I live in Bristol now and I’m a councillor now so I feel I have got a good feel for Bristol but I also think I have got my finger on the pulse of that other community. I go up and down all the time to the farm so it's an important part of my life.”

She is now the Green councillor for Clifton but is standing down at Thursday’s election, when she hopes to be elected as police and crime commissioner — a job she said is: “not a brilliantly well understood role.”

She said: “I think what most others don’t understand is by voting for this non-operational commissioner, what they are doing is allowing this commissioner who gets voted in to be the voice of the public and the local community on policing matters”

The police and crime commissioner sets the police precept part of council tax, decides how the budget is spent, sets local policing priorities, and can appoint and dismiss the chief constable. They also hold a regular performance and accountability panel, holding the chief constable and deputy chief constable to account on local issues.

Ms Grant said: “I think if you are a good police commissioner and I would hope I’d do that, you are essentially out and about a lot listening to people’s concerns, listening to how people experience policing.

“And its perfectly apparent that people experience policing differently depending on who they are.”

She said that in most places, people had told her that they were not seeing enough of the police in their local area, but, at a recent police and crime commissioner hustings hosted by Black South West Network, she heard from the Black community about being on the receiving end of stop and search and having police cars pull up when sat in a vehicle.

Ms Grant said: “Despite all the improvements, police still need better training on how to interact with the community members who, yes, they are protecting but who they are also in a sense putting in a position of suspicion.”

She wants the police to take part in more “collective work” on the prevention of crime, particularly around knife crime. She said: “Being a councillor has allowed me to work with service providers and those doing things in the community around those issues and around prevention. It's helped me to see what kind of options the police have to work with all kinds of service providers to do more about it.”

She is also keen to strengthen policing of county lines, get better resources for neighbourhood policing teams in rural areas, have the police engage in collective work to eliminate traffic fatalities in both urban and rural areas, and support victims in cases of violence against women and girls through the prosecution process.

She said: “I think we need to ensure that women and girls are feeling safe in their homes and on the street.”

The election for Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner takes place on May 2, the same day as local elections to Bristol City Council and a Somerset Council byelection for Mendip South and a South Gloucestershire Council byelection for New Cheltenham. For most voters outside Bristol, however, the police and crime commissioner is the only local election happening on a day which will see all of England and Wales eligible to vote in a local election of some kind.

Also standing are Benet Allen (Liberal Democrat), Clare Moody (Labour), and Mark Shelford (Conservative). You will need to bring an accepted form of photo ID with you to vote.