News from John Biggs (past staff): John Biggs slams plans to cut all PCSOs in Tower Hamlets

The Metropolitan Police will consider plans to axe all local PCSOs at its Management Board meeting on the 29th September it has been revealed. The cuts could see neighbourhood policing teams reduced to just a single police officer for each ward despite having six officers (3 PCSOs, 2 PCs and a sergeant) only 3 years ago.

Local Labour London Assembly Member John Biggs said the cuts would signal the “final nail in the coffin for neighbourhood policing” and called on the Mayor to halt the cuts and engage in meaningful consultation with local communities. According to the latest Metropolitan Police data, there are currently 32 PSCOs in Tower Hamlets, all of whom could all face the axe if these plans go ahead. Across the capital as a whole axing local PCSOs entirely would mean over 1,000 officers lost from London’s streets.

The cuts would come on top of previous reductions in PCSO numbers with 94 or 75% lost from Tower Hamlet’s streets since May 2010.

Labour’s London Assembly Member for City & East, John Biggs, said:

“This is the clearest sign yet that Government cuts are decimating London’s police force. Axing all of London’s PCSOs would be the final nail in the coffin for neighbourhood policing and mean far fewer officers on the beat in our communities acting as the eyes and ears of the Met.

“Boris Johnson has already cut neighbourhood police teams from six officers to only two, axing every PCSO would leave just a single officer left to police vast areas of the capital.

“With at least £800m of expected cuts hanging over the Met, there is a real question as to whether the police service as we know it will exist in ten years’ time.”