Police stations could be set up inside Sandwell schools in a bid to battle the rising tide of weapon and drug crime.

One Tividale school already has a police base on site and its officers have been called on to break up fights and tackle vandalism issues.

Sandwell is about to start a £370million rebuild of every secondary school in the area and Councillor Ian Jones, cabinet member for children and young people said that police bases could be an integral part of schools in the future.

He said: “Tividale Community Arts College already has a police base on site, in the former caretaker’s house.

“There are often tensions in a school environment. These can come out thorough vandalism or fighting and the police there are able to calm these situations down.”

He said schools could also consider using metal detectors to prevent weapons being taken into school.

He said: “There has been a lot in the news about this recently and we aren’t ruling anything out.

“As an authority we have a zero tolerance attitude to weapons and drugs and our priority is protecting the youngsters and staff in our schools.”