With many others, I recently attended the open day at Sutton Police Station, which was a great success and a measure of the high regard that Sutton people have for their local police.

Those residents will be delighted that we will see 48 more officers on the beat in local policing than we did in 2011. That’s pretty impressive when budgets are tight and numbers elsewhere in the country are being cut.

Over 2000 more officers are being brought into local policing in London. That means that we will have 26,000 PC’s in the capital, the largest number the Met has ever seen.

It therefore astounds me to see the recent claim that Sutton has lost officers and is reducing the frontline. This is simply not true.

We must stop scaremongering by peddling misleading figures.

You simply cannot compare present police numbers with those at 2010; it’s like comparing apples with oranges.

To compare like for like, you must use 2011 figures. Many of the roles filled by local officers in 2010 are now filled by civilians and also significantly, by central teams.

We have an excellent local police service, well led, and its blue line is getting even thicker under Boris.

Steve O'Connell; London Assembly member for Sutton and Croydon