AN urgent review of the non-emergency 101 number has been demanded by the North Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel.

The appeal, made at the panel’s meeting on July 20, came after poor performance reports of the non-emergency number in recent months.

North Yorkshire County Councillors told Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan some residents had spent up to six hours on the phone waiting to speak to someone in the police’s control room, with others abandoning their call or dialling 999 instead.

Mrs Mulligan said there had been a spike in call volumes to the 101 service between April and June, with demand rising by up to 20 per cent.

She said this was not purely an issue in North Yorkshire but that a similar trend has been seen in police forces nationwide, where calls to the 999 emergency service also rose sharply during this time. The reasons for these increases were currently unclear, but work was underway to investigate and to make sure adequate resources were available. North Yorkshire County Councillor Carl Les, chair of the panel and leader of the County Council, said: “The panel has taken a keen interest in the development of the 101 service for some time. While we have been supportive of recent improvements, the recent surge in call volumes requires urgent attention and we will be keeping this under review.”