Worried town councillors are demanding talks with top cops after claiming Dartmouth is being robbed of its frontline police officers.

They claim it can take up to an hour for officers to respond to incidents in the town late at night.

And Cllr Francis Hawke said: 'Most people in Dartmouth will now tell you that they have pinched all our frontline officers.'

Now the town councillors plan to write to the chief constable, MP Sarah Wollaston and the Home Office to protest over what they see as a lack of police cover.

And they are pressing for talks with senior police officers so they can spell out their worries.

Cllr Hawke said: 'Most people are worried about this. Clearly the police have made a big mistake by taking away all the police officers from Dartmouth.'

Dartmouth lost out in the police stakes two years ago when a huge constabulary shake-up saw the town's police station closed to the public and many of its PCs and all its CID officers moved to Totnes.

The town was left with a neighbourhood team consisting of one sergeant, three PCSOs and two PCs based at the police station.

The move meant that at night the town was covered by officers based at either Totnes of Kingsbridge.

This week the town also lost Sgt Iain Simmons who was moved to Totnes.

The town will now have to share Sgt Dave Green, who will be based in Kingsbridge.

Policing concerns were highlighted in last week's Chronicle when a woman guesthouse owner revealed it had taken police an hour to get to her after she reported her Victoria Road home had been invaded by a drunken woman who would not leave.

The frightened guest house landlady was left in the lounge with her daughter and three young grandchildren while they waited for officers to arrive from Kingsbridge.

'It took an hour for the police to respond to one incident in Dartmouth and that is a pretty poor job,' said Cllr Hawke.

He said it was time the town council wrote to the chief constable to point out the geographical position of Dartmouth and its 'lack of policing'.

'We are effectively at the end of the line. It is easy to reinforce Kingsbridge and Totnes but Dartmouth is a different kettle of fish,' he added.

'I expect to get the same service for which I pay my rates as they get in Kingsbridge and Totnes and we are not getting it at the moment.'

Cllr Debbie Morris said: 'What would people say if it took the fire brigade an hour to get to a fire?'