Questions have been raised over police’s failure to turn up to a community forum meeting held twice a year in High Wycombe.

Yesterday evening (September 4) High Wycombe’s Local Area Forum (LAF), made up mostly of county and district councillors, met to discuss hot-topics of interest within the community.

However Wycombe District Councillor for Disraeli, Khalil Ahmed, asked why no officers attended the meeting – despite an update from Thames Valley Police (TVP) being included on the agenda.

He added that the issue should be raised with the police and crime commissioner.

Cllr Ahmed said: “We didn’t have Thames Valley Police here, are we going to do something about Thames Valley Police actually getting here rather than just putting it on the agenda, then we ask the question ‘are they here, no they are not’?

“Can we knock on the door of the police and crime commissioner and ask him that we are asking local police to come to a local area forum?

“If they are not recognising this forum then I don’t see much purpose of this forum existing. So I think we should escalate it to the PCC.

“It is not as if it is a regular meeting, they are few and far between.”

Numerous of Local Area Forums are held across the county, often allocating pots of cash for community projects, discussing community issues and also give the emergency services the opportunity to provide an update.

Korinne Leney from BCC’s community engagement and development team said the TVP update is included as a statutory item on the agenda – however it is not compulsory that they attend.

She added that officers have only attended High Wycombe’s LAF twice in two years.

Thames Valley Police insisted a representative is usually sent to LAF meetings, and an officer is due to attend the next forum.