I can’t believe Lisa Winward, the Temporary Chief Constable of North Yorkshire, thinks policing can be delivered like internet shopping (The Press, June 5).

Drawing together a pool of 50 backroom police support staff to record and investigate spiralling crime and disorder by stripping the frontline is detrimental to any model of effective community policing.

How can a reduction in frontline police officers prevent a five per cent year-on-year increase in criminal damage, disorder, violence and robbery, that together make up over half of North Yorkshire’s 36,000 annual reported crimes? What contribution do back office staff make to deterring 26,000 (and increasing) antisocial behaviour incidents that occur in plain sight?

Who is out there trying to stop the nearly 11,000 (and climbing) crimes that involve theft of property, burglary and shoplifting?

Hardly surprising that the result, according to Home Office statistics, is that fewer than five per cent of street robberies and burglaries are being solved and the conviction rate has halved over the past five years.

The Police and Crime Commissioner Ms Mulligan’s response is to propose the unpalatable option of robbing frontline policing even more to plug the gap of inadequate resourcing.

I did not think we appointed her to give up on the prevention of street crime/disorder/antisocial behaviour in favour of investigating cyber crime; to make reporting and investigation of crime more important than its prevention; to ditch proactive community-embedded policing in favour of a reactive response force.

What we need right now is an advocate of preventive policing; someone who can step away from political allegiance and tell the Home Office that additional resources are vital to satisfying the primary duty of the police to keep citizens safe and secure.

Allan Charlesworth,

Old Earswick, York