I FEEL it necessary to respond to Mr Hughes (Letters, November 24) regarding policing priorities.

Police resources are used in a variety of ways to meet the demands and challenges of preventing and detecting crime.

One of our primary functions is to preserve life. Officers attending the road traffic collision on the A64 required three police vehicles to make the scene safe, two ambulances to remove two casualties and several officers to manage the volume of traffic.

Mr Hughes described police resources sitting idle on a speed enforcement as casualties and the blocking of the A64 was dealt with. This was not true.

What Mr Hughes saw was North Yorkshire ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) team conducting a systematic check of all vehicles to target travelling criminals using the police national computer database system.

This is an effective and efficient use of police resources that to date has resulted in key offenders being arrested and substantial numbers of criminal vehicles being seized across the county. This has reduced crime and increased the safety of our community.

When this team is deployed it is necessary for police vehicles to be in a position to pursue vehicles quickly and safely so as to make arrests when necessary.

The deployment of such resources is balanced when considering the high expectations required of the police service.

This type of activity is necessary to target criminals and deal with them positively. I am committed to utilising police resources in the most effective way to ensure our county and city remain a safe place to live and work.

Ali Higgins,

Operations Superintendent,

North Yorkshire Police,

Central Area, York.

Updated: 09:19 Tuesday, November 30, 2004