STATISTICS have revealed that the Somerset East police district - which covers Yeovil - has one of the very lowest levels of bobbies on the beat per 100,000 people in England.

The figures were received by Yeovil MP David Laws from the House of Commons Library and revealed that the local police basic command unit of Somerset East which also covers Crewkerne, Chard and Ilminster was very low.

And now Mr Laws is extremely worried at the news especially as there are plans to merge Somerset East with the Somerset West police district which also has a low number of police officers.

He has described the plans as very concerning as a merger between the two districts would result in a new basic command unit with one of the largest areas to patrol, yet with one of the lowest proportion of officers nationwide..

"It is seems clear from the figures I have received that our local basic command unit has less police per head of population than almost any area in England," he said. "The national average for police officers per 100,000 population is 254, yet we only have 101."

Mr Laws said that throughout England only Rayleigh, Chelmsford and Weald have lower numbers of police per resident.

"Recently we have secured funding for additional local officers, but we must ensure that extra police have priority over organisational issues," he said.

"What concerns me most is that there are plans to merge Somerset East with Somerset West without addressing the under-manning issue.

"This would create one huge force area with a massive area to patrol. This is bad enough but both police districts have very low figures for police officer numbers. By joining the two forces we would create a large force area with very few police."