The Slough MP has addressed the rise in knife crime while stating his fight for more resources in the area.

Slough MP Tan Dhesi said: "Unfortunately there has been a rise in knife crime - not just in Slough but across our country.

"We have seen within Slough that violent crime has increased by 180 per cent since 2011."

Mr Dhesi has explained that he believes that not only should policing numbers increase, but more preventative measures should be added.

"We have seen that the investment by the government into youth centres and youth clubs has been decimated by over a billion pounds cut from those budgets."

In 2018 Slough was dubbed the 'youth capital of Britain' with statistics showing the borough has the youngest population, with an average age of 33.9.

It has meant that Slough has been majorly hit by cuts to youth centres and youth cuts.

"Young people [feel] that impact even more in communities like Slough."

In tackling crime, Mr Dhesi said: "Preventative measures are key."

However, age isn't the only factor Mr Dhesi believes has impacted crime levels. 

"When the Conservative government came in in 2010 they cut more than 20,000 police officers.

"It is only just recently that we have got back to the levels of policing that we had in 2010."

Despite the numbers now being back to how they were a decade ago, Mr Dhesi claims that a lot of the officers are new to the force, younger and more inexperienced, requiring time to get fully trained up and equipped, after many senior officers have left. 

"Rather than police officers just going back to 2010 levels, given the increase in population, we should have by now over the last decade had an extra 8,000 to 9,000 police officers," Mr Dhesi continued.

"We [Slough] do need more resources than some of the other areas within Thames Valley, simply because we're a younger population, we are the closest to London, so some of the issues come out of the Metropolitan areas into Slough.

"I have been increasingly concerned for quite some time now about the rise in burglaries, violent and knife crime."

In March 2023 a total of 189 violent and sexual offences were recorded in the Chalvey, Upton and Town areas, alongside 29 burglaries.

In total 480 crimes were recorded in March 2023.

Whereas in March 2022 there were 432 recorded crimes, with 129 violent and sexual offences and 22 burglaries. 

Current proposals are looking to reduce LPA (Local Policing Areas) from 11 to five in the Thames Valley Policing area - meaning that Slough could become part of an 'East Berkshire' policing area.

However, Mr Dhesi is fighting the proposals saying Slough needs to be a policing area on its own merit.

He said: "Areas like Slough, Reading and Milton Keynes have greater issues that the police needs to contend with and therefore the focus needs to be there so I am not in favour of the government diluting that."