Extra police officers in Barnet were described as “not worth the money” in a move by Barnet Council which drew fire from the opposition group.

At Tuesday night’s (Mar 7) council meeting, the Labour opposition laid out an “alternative budget” to the one proposed by the controlling Conservatives.

One of the proposals in their motion, to fund an extra 15 neighbourhood police officers in the borough, was turned down by leader of the council Cllr Richard Cornelius.

According to the council’s recent residents’ perception survey, crime and fear of crime is one of the top-three concerns among people living in Barnet.

Labour group leader Cllr Barry Rawlings said: “I was appalled when Cllr Cornelius said investing in more police is not worth the money.

“We know people value visible police on our streets.

“After the terrible cuts to local safer neighbourhood teams, with the number of police officers in each team having been slashed from nine to three by Boris Johnson, we proposed recruiting 15 additional police officers to deal with crime hotspots across the borough as and when needed.

“It just goes to show how completely out of touch the Barnet Tories are with public opinion they can claim this is not worth the money.”

The Conservatives defended the decision, saying Barnet has more people per officer than any other borough and pays a larger precept to the Met police.

Cllr Cornelius said: “Barnet has 736 people per police officer – the highest of any London borough – despite the Mayor’s own figures showing it to be the burglary capital of London.

“We also pay the largest precept of any London borough to the Metropolitan Police.

“If we pay for extra officers we are effectively letting Sadiq Khan off the hook.

“It’s typical of Labour’s spendthrift attitude they would rather stump up an extra £495,000 than demand from the Mayor the officers we have already paid for.”

As of June 2016, Barnet has 523 total police officers for its population of 385,108 residents.