CONCERNS over officers’ tiredness and morale have been voiced as Lancashire revealed 10 per cent cuts to front-line policing.

Chief Constable Steve Finnigan said that an overhaul of response policing and reductions to neighbourhood officers as part of the overall £42million four-year budget cuts were unavoidable.

He said the ‘biggest change Lancashire has ever seen’ had been based on ‘risk, threat and harm’ but admitted it ‘wouldn’t be without pain’.

There will be 800 job losses – 550 officers and 250 police staff – of which 160 are front-line posts.

Police will go to 35,000 fewer calls.

Mr Finnigan said: “What we have tried really hard to do is minimise the impact on the front line. "We are now at the stage where we cannot leave the front line untouched.”

Malcolm Doherty, of the Lancashire Police Authority, said the difficult task would be to ensure morale didn’t go down with proposed national pay and pension reductions on top of the cuts and reorganisation.

Lancashire Police Federation chair John O’Reilly echoed those worries, saying the October’s shift review, plus continuing ‘thinning of the blue line’, was leaving officers ‘exhausted’.