Ah right - well I've got my second weekend of special training starting this evening - so I'll let you know in about 3-4 months! My impression is that it's very much spread out. Lots of areas are left without any Police for quite a distance - other busier areas are full of Police. Generally Police go to an area on response rather than happening to be patrolling in that area and a call comes in (if you get what I mean.) I think with 35k Police in the MET and 4.5K (less than that I think) in Sussex it's quite shocking as geographically Sussex is pretty huge and includes some hot spots such as Brighton, Crawley and Gatwick Airport! I think in terms of strategic planning of where Police are located in Sussex is far more important than in the MET as there are such few Police for such a large area. It's quite scary how few there are at the moment and that cuts are needed in order to sustain our effectiveness at the moment!
Best of luck mate! Yeah id agree ... Even to see a police car was usually something special but in London they are literally everywhere. I think I forget how much space they have to cover. When I was home last we went out and whilst eating my subway at 0400 in the morning, it all kicked off. I rang the police twice and 15 minutes later they turned up ... I think I just assume now that because the Met has high numbers, so does everywhere else but I guess not!
Brighton and Crawley look like good fun, I know they take night time economy seriously there. As for Gatwick, theyve got their own dedicated division dont they? I know firearms are permanently based there, I know one of the skippers.
The cuts are extremely scary, I dont think the government realise the damage they are doing sometimes!
. Im a special in the met currently and have been for about a year, but I grew up in Worthing and did consider joining Sussex for a while. I have had a slightly negative opinion of police in Sussex, but im more understanding now I do the same job (They took all my alcohol off me and stopped me from sneaking to Tesco's at lunch in school haha). 
