Norfolk police and crime commissioner resignation could cost taxpayers more than £1m
Sarah Taylor quit with immediate effect half way through her term in office
Last updated 5th Jun 2026
Taxpayers may be facing a bill of more than a £1m pounds after Norfolk’s police boss quit with immediate effect half way through her term in office.
Sarah Taylor’s shock resignation as police and crime commissioner (PCC) raises the prospect of an expensive county-wide election to find her successor, even the role is due to be abolished in two years time.
Ms Taylor’s departure from the £76,000-a-year role emerged late on Thursday afternoon and she released a statement on LinkedIn at 10pm citing “difficult family circumstances”.
She said her family had experienced “multiple bereavements and ill health” and that a close relative had received a “life changing” diagnosis.
Ms Taylor, who has also stood down as a Breckland councillor with immediate effect, made history in May 2024 by becoming the county’s first female PCC and the first Labour politician to win a Norfolk-wide vote in decades.
However, she resigned from the Labour Party last year after the government announced it would be scrapping PCCs.
A by-election to replace her in Breckland’s Dereham Toftwood seat is expected to cost around £20,000.
However, that figure would be dwarfed by the expense of finding a new PCC to serve in the role until its abolition in 2028.
When Wiltshire, a much smaller county, was forced to rerun a PCC election in 2021, the bill topped £1 million.
In 2014, a by-election for the West Midlands PCC role, which covers a larger population, cost £3.7m.
PCCs were created by the coalition government in 2012 to act as an elected check on police forces, with powers to set policing priorities, oversee force budgets and hire and fire chief constables.
Ms Taylor’s time in the role – which comes with an office of 30 staff and an annual budget of £1.83m – was not without controversy.
Her decision to withdraw a £35,000 grant for a specialist domestic abuse legal service drew fierce criticism from victims’ advocates.
She cited “additional obligations on our finite resources” for the decision to pull the grant.
Norfolk County Council eventually stepped in with £72,000 in replacement funding.
While elected as the police boss under the Labour flag, she quit the party in November 2025 after the government announced it would be scrapping her position, and others around the country.
At the time, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said the introduction of PCC’s had been a “failed experiment”.
Before being elected PCC, Ms Taylor spent more than 20 years working as an engineer in the highways and transportation sector.
She was a leading road safety expert who advised the government on smart motorways.
In her resignation letter, Ms Taylor said: “It is my very great sadness that I am resigning as Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk and also as Breckland Councillor.
“I have consistently talked about my commitment to act with purpose and energy on behalf of everyone I was elected to represent. This has not changed but my reasons for stepping down relate to difficult family circumstances which I must address.
“Given this context, there is of course a need to protect the privacy of those concerned. However, I feel the weight of obligation to the people that I represent and therefore feel it is important that I make clear the reasons for my departure.
“Over the past year, my family has experienced considerable difficulties in relation to multiple bereavements and ill health. Very recently, an immediate family member has been diagnosed with a condition which is known to be profoundly life-changing.
“This has upended everything and demands that I, with my family, make decisions about what life looks like with these new circumstances that we are facing together.”