Police taking over 17 hours to respond to burglary calls in Staffordshire

Police in Staffordshire are taking an average of 17hrs 4 min to respond to burglary calls, damning new figures for 2022/3 uncovered by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.

This is a dramatic 73% increase on response times compared to figures from 2021/22, where it took an average 9hrs 53 min to respond to burglaries.

Across England, police are taking an average of 9 hours and 8 minutes to show up at the scene when a burglary was reported. This is a 25% increase when compared to the previous year and an 87% increase on burglary response times in 2020/21.

Years of ineffective resourcing have left local police forces overstretched, under-resourced and unable to effectively respond to local crime.

This includes taking more than 4,500 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) off the streets since 2015.

The party is calling for a return to proper community policing, where officers are visible, trusted and able to focus on responding to neighbourhood crime like burglaries.