MORE than half of people in some parts of England and Wales have not seen a \u201cbobby on the beat\u201d for a whole year, according to new analysis of a survey carried out for HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).<\/p>\n
Bedfordshire was the worst area for police visibility, with 60% of people saying they had not seen a uniformed police officer or community support officer on foot\u00a0in the past 12 months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In Norfolk and Wiltshire it was 52% and 51% respectively.<\/p>\n Of the total 26,057 people questioned by Ipsos Mori on behalf of HMIC in the summer of\u00a02015, the figure was 36 per cent. Just 28% said they were satisfied with the level of uniformed police presence in the area, and 86 per cent said it was important to have a regular police presence.<\/p>\n South Wales and London were among the best for police visibility.<\/p>\n Nextdoor, a social network for neighbourhoods, analysed the survey, which covered all 43 forces in England and Wales, to get a breakdown of the best and worst regions for police visibility.<\/p>\n Max Chambers, a Director of Nextdoor, who used to be a policing adviser to former prime minister David Cameron, said: \u00a0\u201dFinding savings in police budgets was necessary, but funding is distributed so unfairly that the cuts have effectively created policing wastelands.\u201d<\/p>\n In the original survey, 52% of people said they were fairly or very satisfied with local policing in their local area, while just 17% said they were fairly or very dissatisfied. The others held no strong opinion or did not know.<\/p>\n According to Nextdoor, those living in the most deprived neighbourhoods were more likely to say they had seen a bobby on the beat.<\/p>\n Zuleika Payne, Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “Unfortunately that was always our fear from the outset that the public expectation of seeing a bobby on the beat won\u2019t always be met. We are recruiting next year. We are not going to see the policing numbers that we saw before.”<\/p>\n