North Yorkshire Police are battling to be ready for the millennium timebomb.

Senior police officers are gearing up for the potential problems that could occur with computer systems from the change of date in the year 2000 (Y2K).

All the force's computer systems are being tested to see if they will cope with the date change. But there are wider implications which are being discussed by the county's police authority at a meeting in York on Monday.

Assistant Chief Constable Paul Kernaghan has warned the police may have to deal with more than just their own timebomb problems.

He said: "The Y2K problem does not only apply to computers and other equipment with embedded processors.

"To deal with business risk, we will be affected if there is widespread loss of power, telephony, water supply or other services on which we depend.

"Should there be widespread power failure, loss of telephony or considerable activation of alarms all these will place a tremendous strain on our resources."

The cost implication is difficult to assess at present, but the force is in discussions with colleagues around the country so problems can be addressed as they are identified.

At Monday's meeting police authority members will also be updated on the decision to disband the force's mounted section at the end of March.

The seven officers and horses, plus two support staff, cost £320,000 a year and the force claim these resources will be redeployed on frontline policing.

Crime figures for the nine months to December last year will also be discussed at next week's meeting at the Friends' Meeting House, York.

These reveal crime down by seven per cent across North Yorkshire compared with the same period in 1996.

House burglaries are down eight per cen, but violent crime is up four per cent.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.