Plea for more police presence in Flitwick - as resident claims there's "never" anyone to stop offences

A Flitwick resident has summed up Bedfordshire Police presence in his town as police cars travelling through the town or to Tesco for lunch and the occasional pair of special constables on foot.

But officer deployment depends on the force knowing that there are issues, Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst said.

During last month’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) & Chief Constable Accountability Meeting (January 29), the PCC, Festus Akinbusoye, read out a question from the resident, who claimed that “a lot of minor offences” in Flitwick were not being reported in the force’s stats.

The PCC said the resident added a list that included drivers on mobile phones, kids doing wheelies down the High Street on motorbikes or cycles, and parking on the traffic light zig-zag markings.

“All minor offences, I know,” the resident was reported as saying. “But done because there is never anyone to stop them. I’d hate to think about drink driving.”

The chief constable said: “We’ve got a community policing team at Flitwick. But I think the question also said that because we’re not there [these offences are] not being tackled. But it didn’t imply that we were being told about it either.”

The chief encouraged residents to report crimes either online or via 101 so the force can get an idea of the problems and the patterns of incidents. This could also be raised at public meetings held by the Flitwick team, he added.

“That’s the time to raise general problems and hotspot areas, so that we can tackle them,” he said

The PCC added that residents could find out what their community policing teams are up to by entering their postcode on the website police.uk and then clicking on the community team’s engagements tab.