Darwen Town council make call for more police patrols

The move follows concern from a senior Labour member of Blackburn with Darwen Council.

Darwen Town Council agreed unanimously to contact the Conservative commissioner, Andrew Snowden, at its meeting last week.

Mr Snowden has boasted in recent months about how Lancashire Constabulary has recruited a higher number of new officers than its official target, with more than 600 new recruits joining the force.

The recruitment push was part of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's pledge to recruit 20,000 new officers across England and Wales - a similar amount to the number of officers cut between 2010 and 2019.

The issue was raised by Darwen West ward's Cllr Dave Smith.

Darwen West Councillor Dave Smith

He said: "Over the last few months I’ve noticed that the Darwen Neighbourhood Police Team has become very depleted.

"The police themselves are also saying they are very short staffed indeed.

"I did a bit of digging and there are currently just four officers, including one sergeant, and four police community support officers (two of whom are on desk work due to injuries) to cover the whole of Darwen and the rural areas such as Turton, Tockholes and Hoddlesden.

"In all my years as a councillor I’ve never known such a low number of neighbourhood police in Darwen.

"Obviously this is very worrying.

"Darwen is a busy town with a thriving nightlife and needs and deserves to be policed properly.

Lancashire's Police and Crime Commissioner Andrew Snowden (Image: NQ)

"So at the town council meeting I requested it write to Mr Snowden to ask what’s going on and whether the number of neighbourhood police in Darwen will be increased to previous levels.

"This was agreed unanimously.

"I’m trying to find out how many neighbourhood officers are based at the police station in Clitheroe (which has a similar population to Darwen) but am not really getting anywhere.

"I bet it’s a lot more than in Darwen."

Mr Snowden said: "The day to day deployment of officers and operational decisions are made by the Chief Constable and his team, ensuring the constabulary have the right resources in the right place on any given day to take the fight to criminals and keep areas like Darwen safe.

"I have been reassured by the superintendent in command of the area that the officers based in Darwen, as part of and supported by the wider Blackburn with Darwen policing team, are being constantly reviewed to meet demand.

"These officers are broader than just the neighbourhood teams and include the response units, rural task force, special operations team, roads policing, detectives and even the mounted branch, as needed.

"As more of the 612 additional police officers, newly recruited through the uplift programme and local funding, finish training, we will see even more officers out on the frontline in Darwen."

A Lancashire Police spokesperson declined to confirm the number of officers based in Clitheroe for 'operational reasons'.