“Aggressive” beggars are raking in up to £100 a day from unsuspecting shoppers in High Wycombe town centre, prompting the district council to outline tough new plans to crack down on antisocial behaviour.

But politicians have been slammed for doing the police’s job for them as they battle against huge cuts to resources.

Antisocial behaviour, including hostile begging and street drinking, has plagued the streets of the town centre for more than a year – prompting Wycombe District Council to blast Thames Valley Police for not “stepping up” to help tackle the problem in December 2017.

Cllr Lesley Clarke said people who spend their day on the streets collecting “£80 or £90” from various passing shoppers are then walking into shops and asking workers to change up their coins into notes.

Sarah McBrearty, community services team leader at Wycombe District Council, said members of the public want to feel like they are helping people in need and would rather give money to them instead of a homeless charity – but often that money was going towards drugs or alcohol.

A group of councillors tasked with finding potential solutions to the issues have come up with a blueprint of ideas – including potentially closing down public toilets that are being “used and abused” by drug users, offering police officers free parking and hiring street wardens to patrol problem areas and hand out fines from April next year.

The plan was revealed at a meeting of the improvement and review commission, which met at the district council offices on Wednesday night – just moments after Wycombe’s top police officer, Supt Kevin Brown, admitted the crime picture in the district was “not great”.

Fed-up councillors told how reporting antisocial behaviour to police via 101 was difficult – with waiting times of more than an hour on some occasions.

Cllr Chris Whitehead, who led the task group, said Thames Valley Police are struggling with diminished resources – and Wycombe currently only has 15 PCSOs in post, even though there should be 24.

And he insisted that the planned street wardens, who would be able to patrol and enforce fixed penalty notices, would not replace police officers, but would “free up” police for more pressing issues.

However, Cllr Khalil Ahmed, who is planning to run as the Labour candidate for the Wycombe seat at the next general election, said it was a “sad state of affairs” that the district council was being forced to step in and help out the police.

He said: “It is sad that we, as an authority, have to fund the police or help them police, when this is an act of government austerity and cuts. It is something we have to face – they have limited resources. But I am glad to see we are working towards getting this problem solved.”