The head of a community forum which helps residents voice their views about police activities has said cuts to his group’s budget will lead to “greater conflicts” on the streets.

Clarence Thompson, who chairs the Lambeth Police Consultative Group (CPCG), said the cuts would prompt a “severe deterioration” in police-community relations.

He revealed the group was being forced to halve its number of annual meetings from 11 to six and was struggling to survive after its funding from the Mayor’s Office for Policing was reduced from £50,000 to £35,000. It faces further reductions of 19 per cent in 2013.

He said: “Take away that single channel of mediation through communication at public meetings, and there will be greater conflicts and severe deterioration in the trust we have managed to establish between the police and the communities.”

The Lambeth CPCG was one of the first of its kind to be set up following the Scarman report on the 1981 Brixton riots.

It aimed to provide a forum for discussion between residents and the police as part of efforts to improve police-community relations.

Mr Thompson, who has headed the group since 2010, said the high numbers of people attending meetings demonstrated a “strong demand” for the group’s mediation work, adding that changes would adversely affect crime levels in the borough.

Scores of residents attended a recent meeting which discussed the murder of Catford teenager Kwame Ofosu-Asare on a Brixton housing estate and the near fatal stabbing of a 17-year-old boy on a bus in West Norwood.

Mr Thompson said: “We have been engaging with young people in developing a rationale to enable them to desist for engaging in crime.

“I am seriously concerned the reduction in meetings will undermine the essential role of the CPCG in providing a clear line of communication between the police and the community, to the benefit of public safety and public trust.”

Streatham MP Chuka Umunna has written to Mayor Boris Johnson urging him to address the group’s funding problems.

He said: “With the increasing stresses and strains these tough economic times place on our community, we need our CPCG now more than ever.

“Clarence and the whole CPCG team do a superb job and the invaluable contribution it makes to resolving issues were there for all to see particularly during last August’s unrest.”