Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, admitted the country’s largest police force had ‘run out of things to sell’ after it had been forced to sell off more than £1 billion worth of property over the past six years.

But Sgt Kempton warned this was just a ‘temporary measure’ and said it offered no reassurances that the money would be there next year.

He added: ‘What about this time next year when the budget’s even smaller? Do we start to get rid of police officers?’

Figures have shown that 606 police stations have closed since 2010, leaving some cities, such as Bath and St Albans, with no station at all.

Gloucestershire has lost 21 out of 28 stations while 100 stations in London have shut in the past eight years – a move which could mean a rise in criminal behaviour, according to Sgt Kempton.

‘What happens when you have a station closed is you withdraw from the community,’ he said.

‘When we leave completely it leaves a hole in the community and if we’re not careful that hole is filled with criminality.

‘Crime goes up and and trust in the police goes down, because it’s harder to trust someone you never see.

‘When people trust us they tell us what’s going on.’

And added: ‘Selling police stations is a symptom of a wider problem, which is the gross underfunding of the police service.’

Sgt Kempton, who joined Dorset Police in 2000, hit out at policies which have seen officer numbers plummet in recent years, suggesting there were not enough officers to do the job properly.

There were 21,331 fewer police officers in England and Wales as of March this year compared with the same point in 2010, according to the Home Office.

Total officer numbers across the 43 police forces were at 122,404 as of March, the lowest number since comparable records began in 1996.

Such a drastic fall has lead to criminals ‘becoming bolder’ and ‘acting with impunity’ because ‘when we lose those feet on the ground we lose that deterrerent effect,’ Sgt Kempton added.He also suggested that the drop in numbers had lead to a rise in violent crime, particulary knife crime.

Statistics show England and Wales experienced a rise in homicides and knife crime in the year ending March 2018.

Police said there was a 12% increase in homicides and a 16% increase in offences involving knives.

Sgt Kempton said: ‘Knife crime in large cities is right on the brink of being out of control.

‘There’s not one way to tackle knife crime but one of them is having enough police officers who are properly trained, properly equipped and right in the middle of our community.’

He said in Dorset the situation is so dire that even if every officer turns up to work every day the force ‘can’t do the job the public want us to do’.

‘So when people don’t turn up, we come very close to losing the streets when its busy,’ he added.

He urged the government to find more funding or the country risked losing its ability to police.

He said: ‘If the government continues with their austerity agenda, if we try and do policing on the cheap, ultimately that means the service becomes substandard.

‘That would be the end of 150 years of world class policing in this country.’

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