Leaders of a North Yorkshire police union have called on Chief Constable David Kenworthy to step up recruitment after warning the county's thin blue line is being stretched to breaking point.

Bob Humpleby, who chairs the North Yorkshire Police Federation, was speaking in the wake of the shock retirement of Superintendent Jim Kilmartin, a key commander under the recent reorganisation.

Supt Kilmartin announced his retirement last week after admitting he had clashed with the chief constable over the numbers needed to properly police the Central Area, which comprises York and Selby.

Now the federation has admitted Supt Kilmartin's concerns are shared throughout the force and says it hopes Mr Kenworthy will speed up recruitment.

"We are losing some very well-respected and experienced police officers, but I am more concerned about general recruiting situation in the force," said Mr Humpleby.

"Around 55 officers are eligible for retirement and we are not recruiting any until the last quarter of the current financial year.

"This means the best we can hope for at the moment is having 12 new officers taken on some time after next January, who will still need to go through training.

"We are extremely concerned about this and we have contacted the chief constable within the last week and asked him to review the situation and begin recruiting now.

"There is always uncertainty during any period of change but this particular reorganisation does seem to be accompanied by a particularly high level of uncertainty.

"There are very serious concerns over staffing levels and that does not help."

Two other superintendents given key roles in the reorganisation have also chosen to put in for their retirement and MPs and police authority members have also expressed concern about staffing levels.

A former police officer has also contacted the Evening Press and said there had been a dramatic decrease in bobbies since he joined the force in the late 1970s, but the number of incidents was increasing.

"I was recently at a meeting where the westside LAP area inspector admitted there were only four or occasionally five uniformed officers to a shift," he said.

"That's four officers to cover the area from the west bank of the Ouse out to Hessay, Rufforth, Copmanthorpe and Acaster Malbis.

"It's not helping the public and it's not helping the police officers."

But Tony Lidgate, of North Yorkshire Police, disagreed, saying the force now had 12 more officers now than it did in 1979 - although he admitted crime had more than doubled in the same period - from 20,000 incidents to 50,000.

"We could do a better job if we had more officers," said Mr Lidgate.

"And if we had more money we would recruit more officers.

"But having said that, the job has undergone huge changes and by using patrol cars officers are able to deal with far more incidents than they ever could before.

"We have also brought in civilians to work in jobs which used to be filled by police officers, which allowed more officers to be return to the work they were trained to do."

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