Cumbria's next police and crime commissioner is set to take up his new role today.

Conservative Peter McCall has been elected as the new commissioner, who will act as the public's voice on how policing is carried out in Cumbria.

Mr McCall won the race to succeed Richard Rhodes, beating his nearest rival by more than 10,000 votes.

In his victory speech he promised to work for all Cumbrians.

He said: "There is a job of work to be done, I look forward to getting on with it.

"I feel with my army background that I am ideally placed with the right mixture of leadership and the ability to get things done to represent the people of Cumbria in the future of policing in the county."

Mr McCall made commitments to get more bobbies on the beat through the use of volunteer special constables and to fight for a strong budget for the county force. 

His priorities include recruiting more specials and setting up a youth panel to deal with issues faced by young people. 

Mr McCall won a total of 41,345 votes, beating Labour's Reg Watson who received a total of 30,437.

The two candidates came top of the first round of votes with 32,569 and 22,768 votes respectively. As neither candidate received more than 50 per cent of the overall vote second preference votes were counted and Mr McCall won 8,771 against Mr Watson's 7,669.

Loraine Birchall of the Liberal Democrats, received 16,053 votes, independent Mary Robinson won 13,851 votes and UKIP's Michael Pye got 9,370. 

There was a 25.61 per cent county turnout for the vote. This is an increase on the 15.6 per cent turnout in 2012.