THERE is anger over West Mercia Police cuts to evening policing, which councillors say will allow crime and anti-social behaviour to go unchecked.

Herefordshire county councillor Rob Owens (Lib Dem, Bobblestoc) got unanimous backing from colleagues to formally oppose a move to limit the hours of police and community support officers (PCSOs) across the force to no later than 8pm.

And Herefordshire Council’s chief executive will now write to the region’s police & crime commissioner John Campion and chief constable Richard Cooper urging them to reverse the decision.

“In rural areas like ours where police stations are few and distances are long, PCSOs are frequently the only visible policing presence,” Coun Owens told colleagues.

Limiting their working hours “is not just shortsighted, it is reckless”, he said, and had been done without consulting councils, “or with the communities who rely most on PCSOs”.

Backing the motion, Cllr Ben Proctor (Lib Dem, College) said: “It is later in the evening when I have issues in my ward – for example a park where there are persistent issues with organised crime-related drug dealing, where there are concerns about exploitation, and PCSOs regularly patrol that.”

Coun Proctor said PCSOs’ “strength is their embeddedness in the community – they’re not going to reach quickly for enforcement, but instead will negotiate and de-escalate”.

Coun Owens said afterwards: “The police are getting this feedback from all the areas affected – there have been similar motions in Worcestershire, Shropshire and Telford & the Wrekin.”

“It’s not a huge amount of money they’re saving,” he said. “We ‘d hope they would now listen, but they seem quite set on this.”

Earlier Mr Campion told the BBC the council’s motion was “wilfully uninformed, unevidenced, inaccurate and misleading”, and “the very worst of local politics at work”.

West Mercia Police has said the move, introduced last month, allows them to focus on daytime policing when “most crime” is committed.