The former mayor of High Wycombe has said he is ‘not reassured’ after police stressed there is no threat to the community after two serious attacks left the town in shock last week.

This comes after a man was violently mugged for his Apple Watch on Hithercroft Road in Downley on Christmas Day and just two days later a man was shot with a shotgun on the same road.

Cllr Khalil Ahmed, of the Disraeli ward questioned if Wycombe now has a gang culture and said streets cannot be expected to stay safe if the government continues to slash police budgets.

Cllr Ahmed said: “Have we now got a gang culture in Wycombe? If violent crime is no worse than ever, then we can put them down as isolated incidents. But if there is an increase, we need to know why.

“If someone is shooting an individual on the street, targeted or not, bystanders are at risk. Shooting can cause serious injury to innocent people.

“What does it mean that the shooting is targeted? Is this, as some people have said, a shooting by a member of a gang? Does Disraeli now have a gang culture?”

It had been thought that gang culture in High Wycombe was on the decline after a taskforce was set up to tackle the issue.

Police assured residents that the shooting was a ‘targeted attack’ which posed no threat to members of the community.

However Cllr Ahmed called for the force to provide more information about violent crimes and crime rates in High Wycombe in order to alleviate residents’ concerns.

He said: “These are not the first violent crimes in Downley or Disraeli. In July there was a stabbing in Mendip Way and last month there was an armed robbery in a shop in Southfield Road, which had already had an armed robbery a few years earlier.

“It is all very well the police and crime commissioner telling the government that it had got its formula wrong in allocating funds to the force but that only meant that the Thames Valley got slightly more of an ever decreasing cake.”

Fears for the police budget were alleviated earlier in November when the government announced it would not make further cuts to the force.

Police have reiterated that they do not believe the incidents are linked but have not commented further.