Police plans to open a station in the centre of Gerrards Cross were “snatched away” by a hairdresser, officers suggested at the annual parish council meeting yesterday.

The neighbourhood team covering the village and surrounding areas have to relocate from their Oxford Road premises by 2016, as part of a series of cost-saving closures across Thames Valley Police.

Plans to open a building in Packhorse Road were welcomed by residents two years ago, but these fell through and a guest speaker from the neighbourhood team said a hairdresser was somehow cut them out of the running. 

PCSO Paul Dobbin, said: “We were looking at relocating to the Packhorse Road area.

“We actually did have a premises identified in Packhorse Road, I can’t really say what happened, but there was a hairdresser who somehow managed to get in underneath us and snatch the premises away from us.

“But we will be relocating. The station is scheduled to close in 2016. We will be relocating by 2016, but where we will be relocating to, I can’t answer that.”

Last year, TVP announced it must make savings of £44.6m over the next three years, on top of the £58.9m shaved off its budget since 2011/12.

Speaking about crime statistics in the village, Mr Dobbins said fly tipping is becoming one of their biggest concerns in Gerrards Cross.

He said: “We have a problem which is beginning to become to our attention now, which is fly tipping.

“We are getting quite a lot of fly tipping in and around the Gerrards Cross area and, the fly tipping usually consists of used car tyres.

“I dealt with an incident yesterday [Tuesday] in St Huberts [Lane] - 58 tyres done.”

Other types of crime are down since last year, however.

Mr Dobbin said: “From the beginning of January 2014 until today’s date in 2014, burglary dwelling in the areas we cover stood at 23, 10 in Gerrards Cross.

“In comparison, where we stand this year to today, we have had four; unfortunately three of those were here.

“Garage breaks, shed breaks, breaks into business in 2014 we had 17, GX [Gerrards Cross] we had eight. This year we have had 12, but we have had nothing in Gerrards Cross.

“And, in relation to vehicle crime, we had 42 offences back in 2014, 17 of which were in the Gerrards Cross area.

“This year, in comparison, we have nearly halved that to 23, and seven recorded offences in the Gerrards Cross area.”

“We know the hotspots, we do not – surprisingly enough – have any, what we call, home grown offenders. We find quite a lot of offenders that are arrested are all from outside of the area.”

Mr Dobbin urged anyone who needed to report a crime to speak to 101 or call 999 in an emergency.