Residents are complaining there aren't enough police patrolling Bracknell. When the Bracknell News visited the high street on Friday, members of the public shared their concerns about a lack of visible patrols after it emerged crime had doubled in the year to December.

Charlie Drury, the chairman of Shopmobility says: “I could go out to the town centre and not see a police person for days. In the past walking round the town, you would always see at least one policeman or police woman around. If ever they want to fight crime, they need police on the street with the support that they should have.”

“I’d just like to add, that local police officers have told me that Bracknell council spent £90,000 on a heating system at Bracknell police station and then closed the front desk to the public.”

Bracknell News:

After making him aware of the increase in police numbers at Bracknell police station over the last two years, he responded:

“If their goal is visible policing, they are failing miserably. We need to see police out and about. We have a very nice lady who is a volunteer community police person and she is great but we need real policing. A real police person who is paid properly and trained properly to do their job is the thing that we need on the streets”

“The only way people will be deterred from doing things is if they see a policeman standing there and that is what we are missing. I don’t care if they say that they have increased it. We don’t see it.”

However, another member of the public in Bracknell town centre said: “I think that the rising crime levels in the last year is because of the pandemic and lockdown. The fact that people do not have as much freedom anymore.”

READ MORE: Bracknell police station front desk closure 'hasn't affected crime'

While another reader commented online: “With the amount of awful flats that are being built around the town and Bracknell's expansion, the crime commissioner and councillors don't fill me with any confidence that they know what they are handling or doing.”