ABOUT one in seven of the most serious 999 police calls are not responded to within 15 minutes, figures obtained by the Oxford Mail show.

Of the 2,962 emergency calls received from January to June for Oxford, some 452 resulted in a response time of 15 minutes or more.

And response times were worse in other parts of Oxfordshire, with almost one in three not attended within 15 minutes in one district (see table).

Now there are concerns that cuts to Thames Valley Police (TVP) will hit response times further.

Under Labour’s “policing pledge”, all forces had to aim to attend urban emergencies in 15 minutes and rural emergencies in 20 minutes.

The pledge was scrapped by the coalition Government and there is now no national target.

Oxford East Labour MP Andrew Smith said: “The cuts which the coalition Government are making to the police are not going to make this any easier.”

The number of TVP officers is expected to fall from 4,434 to 4,034 from March 2010 to March 2015, with other staff from 3,000 to 2,541 and PCSOs from 500 to 453.

TVP said it did not have cuts figures for Oxfordshire, whose population represents about a third of the force area.

Andy Viney, secretary of the force branch of the Police Federation, which represents frontline officers, said: “Trying to maintain these kind of timescales with reduced service we don’t believe is possible in the current austerity measures.

“It will be a case of prioritising what we attend.”

Staff will do their “level best” to get to emergencies but “other aspects” of the service may suffer, he said.

But he backed the end of the policing pledge as the “quality” of the response was not taken into account.

He said: “Officers are arriving safely to an incident rather than unnecessarily speeding to meet performance targets.”

Karis Daniels, whose brother Blayne Ridgway was stabbed to death outside Oxford’s Que Pasa bar in May 2010, said: “It can take a split second for something bad to happen so arriving after 15 minutes is quite a long time.”

The Wood Farm resident, 25, said: “Response times could be worse but I think there needs to be more manpower. Without that there is not a lot you can do. It concerns me.”

There is no suggestion the police response to the stabbing of Mr Ridgway was too long.

A force statement said: “Thames Valley Police is always seeking to improve on its response times, taking into account the large geographical area that we cover, overall demand placed on the force and the prevailing road conditions.”

It said it does “not anticipate there being any changes to service delivery as a result of the funding reductions”.

The Oxford Mail asked for response times for calls “deemed an emergency”.

Our figures also show 93 per cent of 999 calls were picked up within 10 seconds with 2.9 per cent from 11 to 20 seconds. The force sets a target of 90 per cent.