The fight to protect Cumbria’s police force from potential Government budget cuts is about to be reignited.

Peter McCall, the county’s police and crime commissioner, said he’s preparing to sit down with Whitehall chiefs to talk about how Cumbria will be affected under any new funding formula.

The commissioner’s predecessor, Richard Rhodes, had to deal with the prospect of cuts last autumn that would have cost the force millions of pounds.

Following a campaign led by the News & Star, the plans failed to materialise.

But the shadow of future savings - in a system known as the funding formula - still hangs over policing in Cumbria and across the UK.

“We are about to start negotiations with the Home Office about the revised funding formula and that will take up a lot of my time over the coming months,” Mr McCall said.

“My intention is to preserve at all costs our frontline officer numbers and there will be some significant challenges in that.”

He continued: “To find a formula that is fair [across the country] is a very difficult challenge.

“Especially when you’re looking at a large rural county such as ourselves compared with somewhere like Greater Manchester or London.

“But my responsibility is to make sure Cumbria has the best representation possible.

“Last time in the funding debate there were some winners and losers. We were one of the losers.

“We could find that as a result of the revised formula we could come out as one of the winners.

“But whatever the result we have to make sure we have the best possible argument for Cumbria.”

Our campaign against the scale of planned cuts last autumn saw a petition, backed by 14,471 people, delivered to Downing Street.

The force had warned of a nightmare scenario of job losses, rising crime and the death of the concept of the bobby on the beat after receiving new funding details in October.

The change in the formula would potentially have lead to the loss of £9.5m from this source of cash.

Mr McCall’s announcement comes in the same week that the ex-army officer admitted he’d been caught speeding while on holiday.

He was caught in Somerset in August travelling 36mph in a 30mph zone.

“I absolutely support the line that it doesn’t send out a good message and I am embarrassed to have not been paying attention in a restricted area and to have been caught speeding,” he said.

“It’s also making a point that nobody is above the law and I make no excuse for it.

“The law is the law and I contravened it.”

Mr McCall, who had a clean driving record, will be attending a speed awareness course as a result.

He’s also referred himself to the county’s Police and Crime Panel oversight comittee and will make a statement at their meeting on Tuesday.

The commissioner has additionally notified the Independent Police Complaints Commission about the matter.