Police Presence on High Streets

Paul Kohler Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) on securing the debate and on her excellent speech. I once lived in Erdington, and her constituents have a wonderful advocate in her. I hope I can call her a friend.

As all hon. Members agree, a visible police presence is essential to tackling crime on our streets and high streets. That is why I took the Mayor of London to court and stopped him from closing my local police station in the heart of Wimbledon, and why my constituents are still concerned about its long-term future. After a recent stabbing near a Co-op in Wimbledon, I received a letter from Jack, a pupil at Holy Trinity primary, who wrote:

“The relationship between local police officers and the community they serve is built on proximity and familiarity, and losing this presence could erode the sense of security we currently enjoy.”

When a young person feels the need to write to their MP about such matters, we should all take notice.

Years of cuts have eroded the link between the police and the public. Despite an increase in Government funding in the current police grant, it still falls short of the minimum that chief constables said they needed. For example, the Met, which serves Wimbledon, faces a £130 million shortfall. Just this week, Sir Mark Rowley and other police chiefs wrote to the Prime Minister to warn that, without proper funding, there will be “far-reaching consequences”. In short, these funding shortfalls risk undermining public confidence and the police’s ability to deter everyday crime.

Admittedly, the Home Secretary tried to reassure the Home Affairs Committee, on which I sit, two days ago that neighbourhood policing in London was safe, but sadly we have heard such reassurances before. It has now emerged that neighbourhood policing figures were artificially inflated under the Tories, with the Home Office now admitting that it over-reported numbers. In fact, England and Wales have more than 6,000 fewer neighbourhood officers than the Home Office previously claimed. Our communities were told they were better protected, but they knew that they were not. Nowhere is that more visible than on our high streets. In Wimbledon, there is now no dedicated town centre team, only a neighbourhood team stretched across a larger area. Without visible and trusted neighbourhood policing, crime flourishes and communities are left exposed.

We know that the demands of a busy town centre, retail crime, antisocial behaviour and the night-time economy exceed those of a residential neighbourhood, yet under the Met’s new ward shake up, there is still no confirmed timescale for when police teams will be redeployed, and there is no guarantee that high streets like Wimbledon’s will have dedicated officers. That is why the Liberal Democrat councillors in my area are campaigning for a dedicated town centre policing team in Wimbledon and a local policing hub in Old Malden, along with initiatives such as a town centre pop-up on Friday and Saturday nights and a night-time safety street stall. Those practical steps would restore safety, visibility and trust, but so far nothing has been done by the Labour-run Merton council to address Wimbledon’s policing needs.

I hope that Jack’s words ring loudly in the ears of the Government. If a child is asking who will protect them on their local high street and we cannot give them a clear answer, the system is broken and we must fix it together.