Residents have backed a proposal for a parish council to partly fund the stationing of police officers on an estate where a boy was stabbed.

Councillor John Knapman has called for move after expressing concerns about response times and the non-fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old yards from an unmanned station on December 9.

The move would cost an estimated £50,000 a year.

Katrina Hampton, 26, says that there is enough crime in the area to justify the move.

She said: “It think that it is a good idea.

“I have two young children and they want to play outside sometimes. Just the other day a young boy got stabbed.

“It’s just the youths around here. Some days it’s quiet and then for no reason there’s just uproar. I think police being here would stop that.”

Erkan Musak, 29, works in the Sea Star Fish Bar just yards from the station.

He said: “It would be good for the area, especially after the boy got stabbed.

“We don’t stay open late here but for our customers, it’s what they would want.”

Mr Knapman is to present his case to the council in two weeks’ time in an attempt to convince them to fund the opening of the station between 6pm and 12pm, seven nights a week.

He said: “We were told that response time would only be four minutes when the station was closed, now we are being told that it is ten. Nobody thinks that this is acceptable.

“They are moving resources further and further away, out towards Harlow.

“What they have now said is that if our council can come up with some funding then they would be prepared to consider opening the police station.

“Effectively we would be paying for the policing in that station. One may argue that this is paying for the police twice.

“If it is affordable then I am certain that this is something that we should go for.”

The police station in Limes Farm was closed more than seven years ago but the move to reopen it for 42 hours per week could cost around £50,000 per year.

Jack Large was fatally stabbed just yards from the unmanned station on Limes Avenue in 2007.
A 16-year-old boy was convicted of the murder in December 2008.

Two teenagers have been bailed over the recent stabbing.