Cheshire Police Commissioner revealed to be billing luxury car costs to taxpayer.

A recent Freedom of Information request has brought to light that Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner Dan Price has been billing the taxpayer for a luxury Land Rover Discovery Sport.

Details have emerged in the wake of Dan Price’s controversial decision to increase council tax by DOUBLE the rate of inflation – while scores of Cheshire PCSOs were issued with redundancy notices in the weeks before Christmas.

The Land Rover came with an upfront cost of nearly £4,000 with ongoing monthly payments reaching nearly £700.

Cllr Adrian Waddelove, leader of the Conservative group on Cheshire West and Chester Council, commented:

“At a time when front line policing staff are being made redundant and the Commissioner has sought extraordinary permission to increase council tax by nearly double the rate of inflation – it beggars belief that the Commissioner thinks that billing the taxpayer for a Land Rover is an appropriate use of public money.”

“In his recent budget consultation, the Commissioner highlighted how the Policing budget in Cheshire was under pressure and that the budget was under rigorous review.

“Yet once again, we have seen that when it comes to spending personal to the Commissioner – that all goes out the window.

“I know residents will be left wondering why the Commissioner cannot simply pay for his own car, given that he is already paid £78,400 to fulfil a role that is being scrapped in a few years time.

“If he has any sense, he would return the car immediately, issue and apology and repay all the costs incurred so far.”

Dan Price, Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner, has responded saying:

"Oh dear, well this is ironic. Desperate stuff from the party that wasted billions of taxpayers’ money on dodgy contracts with their mates during the pandemic.

“This isn’t my personal car, it's a pool car. The response to the Freedom of information request I received from Cheshire Conservatives makes that very clear but I’m happy to repeat it. The pool car is available to the whole team in my busy office. I know the councillor who is attacking me has mostly worked in politics and lobbying but in the real world, this is fairly common in organisations and businesses.

“In Cheshire, a county that's geographically larger than Merseyside and Greater Manchester combined, it's just common sense to have an energy-efficient pool car. It reduces staff mileage claims and encourages car sharing to meetings. On top of that, I wanted to make sure that if public money was to be used leasing a car, it went to British manufacturers like JLR in Merseyside. I’m not going to apologise for any of that."

Pictured - Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner Dan Price.