Councillors took to the streets of an Oxford estate while campaigning against local police being "taken away" to other areas of the city.

Members of the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) - including city councillors Stuart Craft, Lee Cole and Jane Lacy - patrolled trouble hotspots in Blackbird Leys on Friday.

Joined by volunteers and party members, the patrol filmed suspicious behaviour in areas well-known for antisocial behaviour and drug dealing.

After the patrol, the second organised in Blackbird Leys in the last 18 months, Blackbird Leys councillor Mr Craft accused Thames Valley Police of regularly removing the estate's neighbourhood officers to tackle crime elsewhere in the city.

Chief Insp Steph Cook said that periods of police leave meant Leys officers had been used to cover other areas, but the estate had not been understaffed.

Mr Craft said: "Despite its heavy promotion, the latest Government initiative of Neighbourhood Policing has turned out to be just another gimmick.

"While this strategy is being pushed, policing resources are actually being withdrawn from the estate.

"I understand the entire Blackbird Leys beat team is now expected to cover the entire city so they can attend only to incidents of the highest urgency on the estate.

"The authorities can't be allowed to hide behind public relations exercises like Neighbourhood Policing.

"The IWCA community patrol aims to highlight this as well as to promote the message that in the face of indifference from the police, the working class residents of Blackbird Leys have no choice but to take lawful collective action to tackle the problems of hard drug dealing and persistent antisocial behaviour."

Blackbird Leys neighbourhood policing team consists of five police officers, a sergeant and four Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs). Mr Cole said for much of the summer the estate had been lacking cover with only one sergeant and two PCSOs because they had been forced to cover other areas.

Ms Cook said: "Members of the Blackbird Leys neighbourhood team are sometimes abstracted to help other areas, but this works both ways and they are covered by officers from the Rose Hill team. There are four PCSOs in the Blackbird Leys team and they are very rarely abstracted to other areas.

"The team are there to police Blackbird Leys and any abstractions are kept to a minimum. The team is also supported by a response team who are there to deal with emergency calls.

"It is not the case that the neighbourhood officers are constantly abstracted to work in other areas, which is hopefully borne out by the amount of good work these officers are doing within the estate."