At a meeting of the full Richmond Council last night, 28 January 2025, a motion tabled by Councillor Gareth Roberts and seconded by Councillor Julia Cambridge was debated. The motion stated:

“Council views with concern the comments made by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in which he outlined his ‘worst case scenario’ which included reductions to various specialist units and the cutting of the Royal Parks Police.   Council believes the Royal Parks Police hold specialist knowledge, experience and expertise which would be impossible to replicate by other units within the Metropolitan Police. Council calls on the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Mayor of London to ensure sufficient funding is provided to ensure the survival of the Royal Parks Police and to mitigate impact on other services identified in the ‘Worst Case Scenario’.”

The motion was carried with one abstention.

Cllr Julia Cambridge, seconding the motion, summed up the arguments made here over the last couple of weeks.

Thank you, Councillor Roberts, for bringing this issue to council. The parks police unit could be cut imminently, impacting policing to Richmond and Bushy Parks.

Forty per cent of Richmond Park is in the boundaries of East Sheen. The community enjoy having an internationally important Nature Reserve on their doorstep. Five million visitors also enjoy the park each year, and that figure is rising.

The police unit, headed by Police Sergeant Sturgess, oversee, in both parks, incidents, accidents, collisions, lost people, damage to property, traffic offences, medical emergencies, the endangering of wildlife and much more. No private security or the diligent park rangers can enforce regulations, which are not Bylaws but Statute laws and can only be enforced by a Constable. The parks police are a small specialist unit with monumental responsibilities over hundreds of acres of Richmond Borough.

As a member of the Safer Parks Police Panel, I have seen the work they do and the order and safety that comes from that. If the unit is disbanded this will be severely compromised. The policing of 3,300 acres would fall to our local neighbourhood teams.

So, I want to challenge the few voices who are saying ‘I’d rather these police officers were on our streets cutting crime.’ If enacted, these cuts will do the exact opposite.

If police retain their jobs, and the Commissioner has said they will need to lose 2,300 officers, they can only apply where there are vacancies meaning, as they are under the Central West Borough Command Unit, they could be absorbed into areas like Charing Cross or beyond. Specialist knowledge lost forever.

We would end up seeing a lot less of our Safer Neighbourhood teams because cuts will burden already stretched local teams with increased workloads and demands to police a park without access to speed guns, off-road vehicles, or even expert knowledge of this vast area. The off-road vehicle has been vital to locate lost children and transporting paramedics and their equipment to casualties inaccessible by an ambulance. It would burden local teams with extra admin and court appearances. Will they really have time if a dog is chasing a terrified deer, or a man is forcing the antlers off a deer.

Anti-social behaviour could be set to rise, and these parks will become a haven for criminality and drug activity along with heartbreaking social issues like rough sleeping and suicide, if left unchecked.

The MET calculate they have a funding shortfall of four hundred and fifty million. The Home Office needs to act and invest in the MET.

The Commissioner and the London Mayor need to think seriously about what disbanding vital services will eventually lead to, which is a rise in crime at a cost to society and MET resources. “