CHESHIRE'S police and crime panel has approved a 4.4 per cent hike in the police precept after the commissioner said the alternative was to cut services.

This means residents living in a band D property will see an extra £10 for the year added to the policing element of their council tax bill.

When asked at last Friday's meeting of the panel by Cllr Paul Findlow how people could afford this when the price of fuel, food, heating and other costs were spiralling, police and crime commissioner (PCC) John Dwyer said: "Those exact same pressures are being applied to the police service.

"If we don't get that (4.4 per cent increase) then… Plan B is, sadly, we have to cut services, it's as simple as that."

The PCC told the panel at the meeting in Winsford that the increase would enable the recruitment of an extra 120 officers.

"This will take Cheshire's officer numbers to the highest ever on its current boundaries, increasing police presence and visibility across the county," said Mr Dwyer.

"That'll give us an establishment of 2,345, officers probably a bit more than that – and when I talk about the current boundaries, the current boundaries were set in 1974."

He continued: "It'll give us 63 more frontline staff, including more for the force control centre, force intelligence, serious and organised crime, major investigations and local policing teams. These staff together will bring down call response times and strengthen the constabulary's ability to investigate and take down serious organised criminals."

He said the money would also be used to help the 101 non-emergency police reporting number as there had been complaints because sometimes it could take 40 minutes before a call was answered.

"The chief constable agreed with me that we would invest more into the control room to ensure those calls were answered more swiftly. We started that investment in the autumn of last year and as a result of that investment, the average time now to answer call in 101 is seven minutes," said the PCC, adding that was still not good enough and he wanted to see calls answered 'within a couple of minutes at most'.

He said the budget would also be used to fund more road safety initiatives 'increasing the use of average speed cameras across the county to prevent deaths and serious injuries'.

"And I can report to you this morning that we are looking at a project on three sites across the county where we're going to be trialling a new approach to road safety and reducing speed in our parishes," he said.

Anti-social behaviour and repeat offending is also another priority, said the PCC.

"I have a view that if we were able to nip some of these things in the bud at the start of it, then we can actually prevent large numbers of youngsters actually entering a life of crime."

The panel agreed to approve the precept and will write to the commissioner with some observations and recommendations.