One thousand new police officers will be on the streets of the capital by the end of the year, according to London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime.

Sophie Linden said the Met was on track to reach its target of 31,000 officers by the end of 2019 – up from 30,000 in May this year.

Officer numbers have been falling year on year since 2016, and dipped below 30,000 for the first time in over a decade last year.

But the Deputy Mayor, speaking at the London Assembly’s police and crime committee today, said the Met is “absolutely focused” on increasing recruitment.

She said: “Every sinew has been strained to make sure that they get the applicants in, they train them, they get them through the process and they are out onto the streets by the end of the year.”

The projected increase comes as violence in the capital remains high. A spate of violence over the weekend left five dead – including a pregnant woman and her baby.

Conservative assembly member Susan Hall said it was “a great shame” that increases in police numbers had not come sooner.

The Met had funding for 30,750 officers in last year’s budget, but saw police numbers fall instead of rising, she said.

The majority of police funding comes from central government, and the Mayor's Office argues that uncertainty around annual funding made it hard to plan for recruitment.

But Ms Hall said: “I’m quite simply sick to death of listening to Mayor Khan screaming that there isn’t enough money for officers when in actual fact the money is in place for those officers.

“It’s not the Government’s fault that the Met is incapable of getting new recruits.

“We passionately believe that there should be more police officers. But I also passionately believe that if you’ve got the money in the budget for more officers than you actually have then it's disingenuous to blame the Government.”