A former police chief who worked in Cumbria and Manchester said he is not surprised by the city's united and resilient response to the terrorist attack.

Retired chief superintendent, Jon Rush, said Manchester was a place of integration, where people of all faiths, cultures and backgrounds came together and where police had been building relationships with different communities for years.

Mr Rush spent nearly 24 years in various role in Cumbria police and was deputy police chief in Carlisle and north Cumbria before he was promoted to chief superintendent with Greater Manchester Police, a role he worked in for six and a half years until 2013.

Speaking to the News & Star, Mr Rush said the police investigating Monday's terrorist attack at Ariana Grande's concert in Manchester Arena would be thorough and would take communities with them on the investigation.

He said: “I know some of the individuals involved who are leading [the investigation]. I know they will do their very best for the community.”

After Monday's tragedy, there has been an overwhelming outpouring of support and love from Manchester as people pull together and unite against evil.

Mr Rush said he wasn't surprised to see the determination and conviction of people in Manchester and how they were uniting. He explained authorities had been building relationships and trust with different communities for more than 10 years in the city by engaging with them.

He said: “I think the work that's been undertaken with local authorities, with schools, with faith schools with police, the whole element of that contributed towards the response.

“Whilst obviously people are very upset and completely disorientated, you do get a sense of communities being together.”

It is these strong relationships which Mr Rush said had stopped planned terrorist attacks being carried out in the past.

And he believes it is these relationships and developing integration and connectivity, rather than police force, which will stop further attacks.

He said: “I think what people need initially is time to think, a time to grieve but I think they also want reassurance and the actual physical presence of armed forces and increased policing can be reassuring but at the same time, I think it's a short term measure because there's got to be a return at some stage to a normal level.

“If someone wants to do what this particular individual did, it's very hard if they are not on that radar to stop it. Security can only do so much but the big element in terms of anti-terrorism strategy was about building communities.”

Theresa May activated Operation Temperer on Wednesday, deploying military personnel to support police and stepping up the presence of armed police across the country.

An important question Mr Rush wants answers to is why the suicide bomber Salman Abedi, who was born in Manchester, decided to turn on people, including children, in the city.

He said: “The fact that we've got a resident of Manchester who has gone out to commit this in his community – there's always reasons why, that will have to be looked at.

“We can't solve this by increased security measures or increased surveillance. It's got to be an issue of working with communities, of working out what are the reasons why.”

Mr Rush, who grew up in Salford, has family in Manchester and had visited the arena many times himself, said the attack seemed so much more real because it was close to things he knew.

“It's almost a surreal experience really. I have got children who have been there of a similar age and you don't think it's going to happen,” he said.