CALLS have been made for more funding to improve traffic policing in a neighbourhood following a spike in car crashes.

Brighton and Hove Green group leader, Councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty, has written to Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne demanding greater prevention of road traffic offences and calling for offences to be “effectively policed” in the Brunswick area.

Cllr Mac Cafferty is becoming increasingly concerned with road policing in the area following two collisions in recent months which both left pedestrians injured.

He said: “There is an urgent need for new and long-term funding of traffic policing resources for the neighbourhood I represent and the city.

“I have witnessed extremely dangerous driving myself of over 80 MPH on narrow residential streets and I have been appalled at rat-running on one ways streets.

“I have had an increasing number of accidents reported to me through meetings of our local action team and through contact with residents and all of this was before the crashes along Western Road earlier in the year.

“The figures I have been able to get tell me there are indeed recorded accidents but they only tell part of the picture.

“What has disturbed me is that residents say the figures only represent a snap shot of what’s happening.”

Cllr Mac Cafferty wrote the letter after hearing the concerns of residents about road safety in the area.

A BMW mounted the pavement and crashed at the junction of Norfolk Square and Western Road on February 9, hitting several pedestrians and a telephone box.

The pedestrians on the pavement were taken to hospital to be treated for minor injuries.

This incident was followed by a collision on March 28 on the corner of Borough Street and Western Road.

A Maserati car crashed into an estate agent shop window, injuring one woman and seriously injuring another.

Cllr Mac Cafferty said: “I have been long convinced that road traffic offences that were prevented and effectively policed only a short time ago are now being allowed to go unmonitored.

“Since the closure of the traffic police unit in Hove, Greens have repeatedly called for more resources to be put into keeping our streets safer and to prevent offences happening in the first place.

“I am now calling on Katy Bourne, the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner, to invest more to keep all of my neighbourhood’s road users safe, including pedestrians, car drivers, cyclists and public transport passengers.”

There were six crashes that left people injured in Norfolk Square between January 2015 and last December.