A top police officer has warned we are ‘very close to losing the streets’ as government funding cuts continue to bite.

Sergeant Simon Kempton, operation policing lead for the Police Federation, blamed a fall in officer numbers for being behind a rise in violent crime.

He called on the government to focus protecting its citizens and said the future looked bleak if officials continued their ‘gross underfunding of the police service’.

Sergeant Simon Kempton has urged the government to halt its ‘underfunding’ of the police service (Picture: Police Federation)

Sgt Kempton told Metro.co.uk: ‘I think the first and the last duty of any government is to protect its citizens, and if the budgets across government have to be constrained difficult decisions need to be made.




‘But keeping people safe, alive and getting on top of criminality should absolutely be the top priority of this and any other government.

‘The reason we pay taxes for a police service is so we feel safe in our homes, these are fundamental things we must meet as a society.’

His stark warning came just days after a top police chief claimed forces were at ‘breaking point’ following severe cuts to their budgets.

The Institute for Fiscal studies said that in the last eight years, central government funding of the police has fallen by around 20%.

Government funding cuts have seen a drop in the officer numbers (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, admitted the country’s largest police force had ‘run out of things to sell’ after it had been forced to sell off more than £1 billion worth of property over the past six years.

But Sgt Kempton warned this was just a ‘temporary measure’ and said it offered no reassurances that the money would be there next year.

He added: ‘What about this time next year when the budget’s even smaller? Do we start to get rid of police officers?’

Figures have shown that 606 police stations have closed since 2010, leaving some cities, such as Bath and St Albans, with no station at all.

Gloucestershire has lost 21 out of 28 stations while 100 stations in London have shut in the past eight years – a move which could mean a rise in criminal behaviour, according to Sgt Kempton.

Sgt Kempton blamed a fall in officer numbers for a rise in violent crime (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

‘What happens when you have a station closed is you withdraw from the community,’ he said.

‘When we leave completely it leaves a hole in the community and if we’re not careful that hole is filled with criminality.

‘Crime goes up and and trust in the police goes down, because it’s harder to trust someone you never see.

‘When people trust us they tell us what’s going on.’

And added: ‘Selling police stations is a symptom of a wider problem, which is the gross underfunding of the police service.’

Sgt Kempton, who joined Dorset Police in 2000, hit out at policies which have seen officer numbers plummet in recent years, suggesting there were not enough officers to do the job properly.

Bath police station is one of the many stations that have been sold (Picture: Jaggery/Geograph)

There were 21,331 fewer police officers in England and Wales as of March this year compared with the same point in 2010, according to the Home Office.

Total officer numbers across the 43 police forces were at 122,404 as of March, the lowest number since comparable records began in 1996.



Such a drastic fall has lead to criminals ‘becoming bolder’ and ‘acting with impunity’ because ‘when we lose those feet on the ground we lose that deterrerent effect,’ Sgt Kempton added.

He also suggested that the drop in numbers had lead to a rise in violent crime, particulary knife crime.

Statistics show England and Wales experienced a rise in homicides and knife crime in the year ending March 2018.

This interactive map has revealed the gangs vying for control in London (Picture: Google)

Police said there was a 12% increase in homicides and a 16% increase in offences involving knives.

Sgt Kempton said: ‘Knife crime in large cities is right on the brink of being out of control.

‘There’s not one way to tackle knife crime but one of them is having enough police officers who are properly trained, properly equipped and right in the middle of our community.’

He said in Dorset the situation is so dire that even if every officer turns up to work every day the force ‘can’t do the job the public want us to do’.

A knife bank is seen outside Brixton police station after a recent rise in killings in the capital (Picture: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

‘So when people don’t turn up, we come very close to losing the streets when its busy,’ he added.

He urged the government to find more funding or the country risked losing its ability to police.

He said: ‘If the government continues with their austerity agenda, if we try and do policing on the cheap, ultimately that means the service becomes substandard.

‘That would be the end of 150 years of world class policing in this country.’

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