Jess Brown-Fuller Renews Call for Community Policing Amid Sussex Car Theft Crisis

Jess Brown-Fuller, Liberal Democrat MP for Chichester, has renewed her call for a fully resourced return to neighbourhood policing across Sussex after new figures show the pressure local officers are under when it comes to tackling car theft.

The figures, from the Home Office and analysed by the Liberal Democrats, show that Sussex Police recorded 1,902 vehicle thefts in 2025, with a suspect charged in just 1.47% of cases and no suspect identified in 80.02%. Jess and the Liberal Democrats say the figures reflect not a lack of will or effort from officers, but the reality of a force stretched too thin to give these crimes the time and investigative resource they need.

Jess Brown-Fuller MP has renewed her call for a fully resourced return to neighbourhood policing across Sussex.

Many parts of the Chichester constituency are rural, where residents have little choice but to rely on their car to get to work, school or a hospital appointment; the loss of a vehicle to crime can be genuinely disruptive to daily life, making a visible and responsive local police presence even more important.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the government to properly fund and restore neighbourhood policing, so that local officers have the resources and time on the ground to investigate reports of theft and, through greater visibility, deter would-be offenders in the first place.

The party has also proposed a specialist unit within the National Crime Agency, pooling data from automatic number plate recognition cameras, insurance records, and intelligence from police forces and border control, to help target the organised crime networks that drive much of the country's vehicle theft.

Commenting on the issue, Jess Brown-Fuller said:

"I want to be clear: our police officers in Chichester are working hard, but they are being let down by a government that has failed to resource them properly. Across Sussex people rely on their cars to get to work, take their kids to school and get themselves to the doctors and essential services, and it's a scandal that so many are having their vehicles taken with so little chance of the culprit being caught.

"That's not down to a lack of effort from local officers, it's down to years of underfunding and the loss of neighbourhood policing that gave communities a visible, trusted police presence. Fewer officers on our streets means less time to investigate crimes like car theft, and less deterrent for the criminals carrying them out.

"I'll keep pushing ministers to properly fund neighbourhood policing in Sussex, because our officers and our communities deserve better than this."