YORK'S historic police headquarters is being transformed into the hub of a new approach to crime-fighting in the city as part of a major shake-up.

Clifford Street police station, which was once the city's main police base and subsequently the office of city centre officers, is already home to York's new breed of community officers, dubbed "ward managers", and is soon set to take in the city's crime-reduction outfit Safer York Partnership.

Uniting these officers with the partnership, which is responsible for shaping long-term anti-crime and disorder strategies, is aimed at providing a more "rounded" approach to tackling problems in city communities.

Superintendent John Lacy, commander for York and Selby, said: "It is crucially important that we work with the community in building a robust infrastructure, which embraces both longer-term proactive policing and immediate reactive responses. I believe that the ensuing months will bring tangible improvements, not just in traditional policing, but in harnessing both fact and feeling from local people in York."

The overall reorganisation sees the Local Area Policing areas of city, north, east and west done away with so the city can be policed as a whole.

The bulk of officers will make up a response team, which will operate out of headquarters in Fulford Road, which is also home to the area's police chiefs, support staff and specialists, such as CID and Underwater Search Team. They will deal with urgent situations, including 999 calls, 24 hours a day.

Clifford Street police station houses the community team, led by Chief Inspector Howard Harding, and will soon house the Safer York Partnership, headed up by director Jane Mowat. The ward managers cover areas based on council ward boundaries and have already begun forging relationships with the community and its representatives.

The Acomb office becomes the police training base and Clifton Moor houses the coroner's office and licensing department.

The police say these changes will not reduce public face-to-face access to officers, particularly given that the outlying stations had long ceased providing such a service. Members of the public will be able to arrange an appointment with their ward manager, and Clifford Street station will have an open-door policy giving the public access to Safer York Partnership staff.

tony.tierney@ycp.co.uk

Updated: 10:31 Tuesday, April 29, 2003