Crime in Kent has risen by 38% in a year, according to figures released this week.

The Office for National Statistics has released the reported crime figures for March 2017-March 2018, with the majority of crimes seeing a sizeable increase in Kent.

In particular violent crimes and anti-social behaviour have risen, and Labour councillor for Rochester West, Alex Paterson, says that the rise in crime is to be expected.

“I think [the statistics] are a natural follow on from the 500 police officers we’ve lost in Kent since 2010,” he said.

“These cuts have consequences, and I think that people would be quite surprised to find that how safe we are on our streets is something that the Conservative government was prepared to sacrifice in the name of austerity”.

The figures come in spite of Matthew Scott, Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner, saying last month that crime “was not rampant” in the county but “stable”.