West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has hit back at suggestions he is not doing enough to combat crime on public transport.

Earlier this week police chief David Jamieson suggested that the mayor had 'questions to answer' following a rise in crime on public transport.

Speaking at the Strategic Policing and Crime Board on Tuesday, the Police and Crime Commissioner highlighted a failure to issue a single travel injunction as evidence that the mayor and his team should be doing more.

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street.

The ability to issue travel injunctions was first given to the combined authority in early 2017.

But the mayor has now had his say on the matter, claiming that no one has yet justified the use of a travel injunction.

"These powers are the same as those held by each of the local authorities as well as West Midlands Police, BTP and social landlords," as spokesman from his office said.

"In essence it enables us to get a region-wide injunction with prohibitions, such as not using the bus network or bus stations.

"Generally this would be applied in the most serious of cases and after every other intervention like warning letters, restorative justice and acceptable behaviour contracts. This obviously is something the court would expect us to demonstrate before issuing.

"The simple answer is we haven’t yet had anyone who has continued to act anti-socially to any significant degree that hasn’t stopped following the other interventions, or been dealt with criminally.

"Clearly once we have such a person, we will absolutely be using these powers."