A Canons Park community panel set up to work with police to address local concerns has suspended itself in protest at cuts to officer numbers.

Kirit Modi, chairman of Canons Ward Safer Neighbourhood Panel, said the reduction of local PCSOs from three to one, combined with the team’s sergeant now being in charge of two wards, meant officers’ jobs had become “impossible”.

He said statistics provided by the team showed that since the changes took effect in December, crime was up and the sergeant in charge had asked to tackle one local priority rather than three, because of the low numbers in staff.

From December last year to March 2012, non-residential burglary and car theft has tripled, and residential burglary has doubled in the area, compared with the same period the year before.

Dr Modi said: “You can see from the statistics that crime figures have risen significantly. You have to be careful when saying that’s because of the reduction in staffing, but that’s why we’ve compared this year’s figures to a similar period last year.

“Now we find that their visibility of the team has gone and people are saying ‘where are they’? I’m not blaming the staff because they have an impossible job.”

Members of the Metropolitan Police Authority approved cuts of 150 sergeants across the Met last year, but recommended that each ward have two PCs and three PCSOs assigned to them.

However, borough commanders are able to move officers from “quieter wards” temporarily to other wards if needed, with a guarantee that at least one PC and one PCSO will be working each patch.

Dr Modi has written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to tell him that the panel would suspend its work until there was “a significant increase” in officer numbers.

He added that suspending the work of the panel was a decision that had “not been taken lightly”, but questioned the point of telling officers what the community’s concerns were if they could not tackle them.

“Our sergeant says he hasn’t got the staff to do three priorities and I understand that. And therefore we felt that we don’t have any influence. Being a talking shop is pointless.”

The Harrow Times is waiting for a response from Harrow Police.