PAUL Batchelor, the Lib Dem candidate for Wiltshire’s first police and crime commissioner, is promising to target anti-social behaviour and drug crime, if he is elected on November 15.

He also says he wants to see better support for victims of hate crime, Mr Batchelor, 57, of Warminster, who has been a councillor in Wiltshire for 17 years, is the chairman of Warminster police tasking group which, he says, has helped to reduce anti-social behaviour is the town by 41 per cent in the year to May 2012.

Police and crime commissioners are being brought in by the Government to replace police authorities in England and Wales, and will have the power to hire and fire chief constables and set the force’s budget and strategy.

The other candidates are Labour’s Clare Moody, the Conservatives’ Angus Macpherson, John Short for the UK Independence Party, and independents Colin Skelton and Liam Silcocks.

Mr Batchelor, the deputy mayor of Warminster, said he would tackle anti-social behaviour by increasing numbers of officers in neighbourhood police teams and helping to expand neighbourhood watch schemes to find out and target specific issues.

He said: “There’s just not enough manpower to be everywhere.

“So it’s a case of focusing the police teams where the residents are showing that there is an issue.”

Mr Batchelor said he would help the neighbourhood police to work more with the existing drug targeting team, which would receive extra resources such as new computer software.

To reduce hate crime, Mr Batchelor said he would seek to train call handlers to spot and fully record hate crime, to enable the force to better support victims. Visit www.paulbatchelor.org.uk.