Your article highlighting that North Yorkshire Police is being overwhelmed by incidents reported by the public (The Press, 11 August) is both revealing and predictable.

Last year North Yorkshire Police was caught on the back foot when it was revealed that callers could not get through to the control room and were were regularly being cut off. After a public outcry Julia Mulligan, the police and crime commissioner, announced she would spend £3 million upgrading facilities and employing extra staff to handle the calls.

What she should have foreseen was that unlocking the bottleneck of calls would release a massive suppressed demand for police service. But this predictable consequence was overlooked and North Yorkshire Police has been caught on the back foot - yet again.

Admittedly calls for service are now being answered more promptly, but they are simply being stacked up - with as many as 500 waiting to be actioned - simply because there are not enough front line officers to respond. The result is that unless a call is about a violent incident, it is placed in a queue to be dealt with as and when officers come free.

So what has the £3 million spent by Julia Mulligan on providing the new control room achieved? The answer is absolutely nothing, other than underscoring that she is out of touch about the need for more police officers at a time when she is paring them to the bone.

Ms Mulligan’s denials about the need for more resources to meet growing levels of crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour are ringing increasingly hollow. It is time for her to get a grip of the realities before she gets her comeuppance at the ballot box.

Allan Charlesworth,

Old Earswick