“Working to build trust, understand community needs and solving local problems” are some of the things that 30 new neighbourhood officers will be doing to help prevent crime across Cambridgeshire.

be doing to help prevent crime across Cambridgeshire.

The first 30 of 50 new officers have been placed across East Cambs, South Cambs, Wisbech, March, Cambridge, Peterborough, St Ives and Huntingdon Cambridgeshire with the remaining places to be filled in January 2020.

Chief Constable Nick Dean said: "Neighbourhood policing is at the heart of everything we do and building trust and confidence with our communities is vital in helping us to prevent crime and bring offenders to justice.

"I was determined to increase our neighbourhood policing offer here in Cambridgeshire and these officers will do exactly that."

Under the neighbourhood policing structure, the forces Impact Teams, Community Action Teams and Public Protection Teams, who tackle local issues, will also benefit from the increase.

Mr Dean added: "We want to ensure our neighbourhood teams are accessible to, responsible for and accountable to their communities.

"They will be working to build trust, understand community needs and work collaboratively with partners, the public and communities to solve local problems, all the while being supported by a network of specialist policing services."

Last week the Government launched a campaign to recruit 20,000 new police officers.

The 'Be a force for all' campaign follows the Prime Minister's commitment to increase police numbers over the next three years.

Mr Dean said: "Any further increase will support our ability to prevent and detect crime, and importantly keep our communities safe.

"We await further details on what exactly this means for Cambridgeshire in terms of resources."