Police and Crime - Hartley-Kent: Covering Hartley, Longfield & District

Page updated 23 June 2026

Kent Police area, like most of England is county based and includes the administrative county of Kent and the Medway unitary authority.  Since 2012 it has been run by a Police and Crime Commissioner.  Before then a committee called the Kent Police Authority, made up of councillors, ran policing in Kent.  Operational matters, however, are the responsibility of the Chief Constable.

Kent Police is divided into three divisions: North, West and East, based on local authority boundaries.  This means that our area is divided between North Division (Longfield) and West Division (Hartley and Ash).   But as the force has a unified command system, they will despatch the nearest available unit regardless of which area it is in.

The government is proposing to reduced the number of police authorities in England from 43 to around 12 which will mean Kent will amalgamate with one or more neighbouring police areas (From Local to National: A new model for policing, 2026).  They also propose that Police and Crime Commissioners be abolished.  It is likely therefore that a future executive mayor of Kent will have responsibility for the police.  Kent Police already has a strategic partnership with the Essex force, which means a number of shared facilities.

Kent Police operates a neighbourhood policing model, based on council wards.  Their website has links to information on local officers and crimes for each of our three wards.

The Kent Police website has a number of pages for reporting various matters to them ranging from crime to lost property.

Each neighbourhood page on the Kent Police website contains statistics on crime and clear up rates going back 3 years.  The associated maps allow you to find details of crimes on an individual road level in some cases.

Another useful website is www.e-watch.co.

The numbers for each ward over the 3 years are set out in the table below.  Of the 3,324 crimes, in 1,222 cases no suspect was identified and in another 945 there was a suspect the police were unable to prosecute, presumably when the evidence was not felt to be strong enough to get a conviction.  In about 300 cases there was someone taken to court or another sanction imposed.