UNTIL we can afford to deploy a police officer on every street corner, we should support fellow citizens who volunteer to be PCSOs.

Their value lies in what they see, know and report.

Unlike the taxpayers’ alliance (LT, March 28), I don’t care if they never issue a ticket or book anybody.

The alliance would be doing their job better if they concentrated on Westminster rather than asking PCSOs to prove the unprovable.

Nobody can say how many crimes or how much anti-social conduct is thwarted by the deployment of PCSO policing on the cheap.

We do know that the rules introduced to stop people at Westminster fiddling expenses and robbing the public purse have just been amended which will allow the fiddling to resume in a different way for those inclined to do so.

D PRATT, Plantation Street, Accrington.