Policing in London will be forced to radically change after the next round of cuts come in later this year, Redbridge’s borough commander has warned.

The Metropolitan Police’s longest serving borough commander with four and a half years in the job at Redbridge, Sue Williams, was speaking on Tuesday evening (August 25) at the Q&A event at Ashurst Drive Church, in Barkingside.

She warned that another spending review coming up in November could see up to £1.6billion slashed from the Met’s budget by 2020, which she claims is comparable to around 9,000 police officers.

Williams said: “Policing may have to change completely in London and there are some very difficult decisions coming up.

“We need a conversation around the future of technology being used in policing and whether people will be able to report crimes online using their iPhones or computers.

“By using technology efficiently it is conceivable that we could cope with losing some police officers.”

Williams also believes that the organisation of policing in London will have to change, and there is uncertainty surrounding the policies of the new London Mayor, who will be elected on May 5 next year.

She said: “Policing will look different in the future, I can’t tell you how it will look yet, but I can say for certain it will be different.

“There will probably not be borough policing in the future, we may have to team up with neighbouring boroughs or something similar.

“If the new Mayor wants more police officers, as some candidates have been saying in their manifestos, we will have to lose buildings.

“There are over 400 buildings owned by the Met at the moment but that could go down to around 100.”