THE number of firearms officers at North Yorkshire Police are at their lowest numbers in seven years, new figures have shown.

A lack of trained and available officers could end in tragedy, the North Yorkshire Police Federation has warned.

Figures just released by the Home Office show the force had 63 armed officers in March 2015 - the same number as in 2009 - a drop of 17 per cent on 2014, and down from 77 in 2012.

The figures also show that the number of police firearm operations in North Yorkshire rose by 20 per cent between 2014 and 2015, and the number of operations involving armed response vehicles rose by two per cent in the same period.

Mike Stubbs, chair of North Yorkshire Police Federation, said the fall in the number of firearms officers and other specialist areas including roads policing was "an inevitable consequence of government cuts to policing", but the reluctance of officers to take on the role was also an issue, as many were concerned about the public perception of firearms officers.

Sgt Stubbs said: "Recruiting officers to take on this demanding role is becoming more problematic. Experiences elsewhere in the country have increased concerns officers have about how they will be treated if they are actually required to use firearms.

"If the public expects police officers to carry and use firearms to deal with dangerous criminals, those officers need the reassurance that they will be treated as professionals who have carried out the task they have been trained to do, not as potential criminals themselves."

The force has made much of combining services with police in Cleveland and Durham in recent months, but they too have suffered a major drop, losing 36 per cent and 30 per cent respectively between 2009 and 2015.

These figures mean that between the three forces, as of March 2015, there were 173 firearms officers to cover more than 11,000 square kilometres and protect about 1.9 million people.

Sgt Stubbs said: "Inter-force collaboration on issues such as training makes sense. But, in a county the size of North Yorkshire, we still need enough officers here trained and available to get to an incident quickly enough to deal with it. The consequences of not doing so may be tragic."

North Yorkshire Police were unable to comment at time of going to print.