Tensions erupted on Teesside last week in the aftermath of the fatal car crash on the A66, which claimed the lives of seven people, including two police officers
Local leaders say cuts to police have put officers under huge strain as they grapple with suspected gangland violence and disorder in Middlesbrough.
Tensions erupted on Teesside last week in the aftermath of the fatal car crash on the A66, which claimed the lives of seven people, including two police officers.
Cleveland Police has arrested 24 people – including seven men on Friday – as part of a probe into organised crime. Some 200 officers have been drafted in to bolster their ranks from other forces.
The extraordinary scenes highlighted the intense pressure on the force as Middlesbrough grapples with disproportionate levels of crime. Cleveland has long complained that basing police funding settlements on population rather than deprivation and recorded crime has had a crippling effect.
Chris Cooke, the Mayor of Middlesbrough, said: “They [the police] are doing extremely well, despite and in spite of the lack of the funding that they absolutely need. They are the police force that’s been hardest hit [by cuts].”
He added: “The funding for police needs to follow need and needs to follow what the statistics are. It cannot just be based on population size as that serves no one well.”
Mr Cooke said work needed to be done to intervene earlier, with a push for youth clubs and opportunities to break cycles of offending. He said the situation on the ground was tough but added: “We always bounce back, we are always persistent, we are always here.”
It comes after five Labour Teesside MPs – Andy McDonald, Chris McDonald (Stockton North), Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland), Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) and Anna Turley (Redcar) – called for more funding to address the pressures being felt locally.
“These pressures did not emerge overnight,” they said in a statement. “They have built up over many years and were made significantly worse by the savage cuts during the austerity period.”
Last year Labour Police and Crime Commissioner Matt Storey claimed the force was facing a £2.4million shortfall in this financial year. He branded the funding farcical, pointing out that Cleveland has the highest number of crimes per 1,000 population anywhere in England and Wales.
Analysis of Home Office figures shows it recorded a rate of 123.4 crimes per 1,000 people in the year to March 2026 – well above next-highest West Yorkshire Police on 107.9 and the Met on 101. A third of neighbourhoods in the area the force covers are in the top 10% most deprived areas – the highest level in England.
Cleveland Police lost around 200 officers as a result of Tory austerity. According to official records, in 2010 Cleveland Police had 1,724 police officers. By the start of 2026, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, this had fallen to 1,524.
Cabinet Minister Bridget Phillipson said the scenes were “shocking” and admitted more needed to be done to look at how forces are funded. She said her Houghton and Sunderland South constituency, to the north of Cleveland, faces similar challenges.
“We saw over the course of more than a decade, resources pulled away from communities, in terms of policing resources ” she said. “That has had really big challenges.”
The Labour Party chair added: “Lots of people in communities like mine and places like Middlesbrough, over many years saw effectively a breakdown in law and order in their communities because of a lack of a police presence.
“We’re putting that right, we’re putting back neighbourhood policing into those communities. But I do recognise in the short term Cleveland need to continue to receive that support to deal with what they’re facing.”
A spokeswoman from the Police Federation of England and Wales told The Mirror: “More than 15 years of austerity combined with spiralling workloads means policing is broken.
“The service is being kept on life support because police officers across the country are having rest days cancelled, annual leave refused and seeing duties changed at short notice. This exploitation must stop and a fair funding formula has to give officers in Cleveland and beyond the resources they need to keep the public safe.”
Money is allocated to forces using the police allocation formula (PAF). This takes into account factors including population density and the type of crime that forces most commonly deal with.
It is not based on how much cash each force says it needs – instead it divides up a national pot based on their relative needs. But inevitably this means many chief inspectors believe their area is not being treated fairly.
A spokesperson for the NPCC said: “We are in contact with Cleveland Police during what is an exceptionally busy period for policing colleagues. The National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC) has supplied a limited number of officers to assist with the wider policing operation, with the vast majority of mutual aid currently being resourced regionally.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our thoughts are with the victims, families and wider community after this terrible incident. The Policing Minister remains in close contact with Cleveland police and local representatives to ensure the force has the support it needs during this difficult time.
“We are reviewing the funding formula as part of our wider programme to reform policing, which includes restructuring of police forces. We will work with forces to build consensus around a future model.”