OUR police boss will press the Prime Minister and Home Secretary to lift the cap restricting how much council tax can be raised for police services.

The Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne will appeal to her Conservative colleagues to allow them to generate more income to better fund the county’s police force.

The county’s first commissioner said residents had shown a willingness to pay more tax for improved police resources and that had only grown following the terror attacks in Manchester and London.

Ms Bourne’s call comes in response to her colleague in Staffordshire, Matthew Ellis, who has made an impassioned plea to have the cap on the share of council tax scrapped.

Mr Ellis has written to Amber Rudd claiming current police budgets are not credible to cope with the demands on resources of the current terror threat level.

This year Sussex taxpayers saw their police precept rise by the maximum 3.4 per cent, equivalent to £5 more a year for band D households, which will allow Sussex Police to hire 100 more specialist officers.

Almost 4,500 people responded to the public consultation on the precept rise with nearly 80 per cent supporting an increase to raise an extra £3 million of annual funding. Every one per cent increase of the precept raises an additional £930,000.

Ms Bourne said Sussex taxpayers paid the fifth lowest amount in council tax for policing in England and Wales.

She added: “The amount I can raise this precept is currently capped by Government to no more than £5 per year, per household.

“For the last four years, I have consulted with residents over raising the precept and the public has shown very strong support for me to do this.

“It’s no surprise that, in light of the recent terrorist attacks in the UK, public concerns around security and safety have been heightened and this is something I’m hearing directly from residents.

“Lifting the current cap on the precept would give PCCs like me greater flexibility to generate further income for policing through the council tax and this is something I will be raising with the Prime Minister and Home Secretary.”

Ms Bourne added she was continuing to make “robust representations” to the Home Office for the ongoing police grant funding review.

Like Ms Bourne, Mr Ellis was elected his region’s first PCC in 2012 following the move away from the previous police authority model.

He said: “The world we are now living in, especially post the Manchester and London terrorist attacks, means it is not credible that current budgets can maintain the increased levels of police resources required for what is likely to be a long period in Staffordshire and I’m sure elsewhere.

“Locally elected PCCs are accountable to their electorate, meaning we are best placed to know the needs of our specific areas and be directly accountable for the funding decisions we make.

“I have written to the Home Secretary to suggest she considers this proposal around local funding for policing.”

Further warnings on police funding have been aired recently by Dame Vera Baird, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners chairwoman, who has warned ministers that forces are close to breaking point because of budget cuts and soaring demand.

She has told the Home Secretary that forces are “operating at the limit of their capability” and has warned that any additional funding for counter-terrorism and armed policing should not come from further reducing budgets for local policing.