The most senior police officer in North Yorkshire said a botched experiment to bring an old-fashioned bobby to a York village will not halt the momentum of a massive crimefighting drive across the county.

Della Cannings told the Evening Press that her own brand of high-profile community policing would succeed and that residents would soon accept a constant visible police presence as "the norm".

She said the drive to take criminals off the streets as part of Operation Delivery would help push the newly-invigorated force to the forefront of policing in England and Wales.

Ms Cannings dismissed as outdated the Joseph Rowntree Foundation survey that found New Earswick residents became more fearful of crime after an attempt to buy in their own village bobby.

She said lessons from the experiment, which was cut short after it began in 2000, had already been learned and that prominent policing and community safety did not necessarily have to raise the fear of crime.

She said: "What I want is for people to see high-visibility policing as the norm. It's not bad news or good news to see a police officer, it's the way we do policing."

She agreed that measures such as CCTV can make people more afraid of becoming victims of crime, and said all policing measures had to be introduced in context and targeted against specific problems.

As reported in later editions of yesterday's Evening Press, North Yorkshire Police have now recorded more than 1,000 arrests in four weeks under the banner of Operation Delivery.

The hard-hitting drive aims to put the police on the front foot by targeting known criminals, tracing suspects with warrants held against them and disrupting those involved in criminal activity.

Ms Cannings has spearheaded the operation, putting enormous pressure on front-line officers to make arrests and get tangible results in the fight against crime.

She said: "I'm very impressed with the vast majority of my staff who welcome the challenges and want to make changes."

Updated: 10:53 Friday, October 10, 2003