CALLS have been made for more police action to tackle the problems of burglary, antisocial behaviour, drugs and road crime this year.

Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan said about 1,400 people had responded to the police and crime survey and shared their personal and community-focussed priorities.

Individually, the responses called for higher police visibility, more work to tackle antisocial behaviour, burglary, road crime, drugs and violent crime. Community-wide concerns included burglary, and rowdy, drunk or antisocial behaviour in the streets.

The full details of the survey, which is used to guide the latest Police and Crime Plan, will be released in the new year. Mrs Mulligan also said the force was looking at bringing more resources into the control room at Fulford Road, where the county’s 101 and 999 calls are answered.

She said many people had complained about their experience with 101, a trend also seen nationally, but a Government plan to overhaul it has been scrapped, and local forces have been left to do what they can to improve the service.

Mrs Mulligan said: “I don’t think what had been planned nationally was hugely significant in any event, and it’s always been down to local police areas to look at how they use the 101 systemOur work showed only about half of the public was aware of 101, so we will be doing some work to promote it in the new year.”

That, coupled with extra staff, will go some way to improving it but also seen an increase in the number of calls going into the force control room (FCR), particularly due to other services cutting back - so people call police more and we think that will continue. She said the control room received a lot of calls concerning social care out of hours. “The only people they can really call is 101, and we’re thinking working with other blue light services could help that.”

These plans are not finalised, but would likely see a continuation of mental health triage nurses working alongside police call takers to help callers with mental health problems which do not require police attention.

Mrs Mulligan said the force was still on target to reach 1,400 warranted officers by 2018.

Regarding delays to the implementation of some new technology, Mrs Mulligan said plans to recruit extra staff for the IT team had been approved which would help the force move forward with the the project - which includes mobile technology to allow officers to remain on the streets longer.

She said: “It will mean the police have a lot more information at their fingers, thus allowing them to work a lot more quickly and effectively than they can at the moment. We have got a supplier on board and we’re developing the software that needs to go on the devices, and we’re moving forwards but we need more resources in the IT department.”