A POLICE recruitment campaign won’t put more bobbies on the beat - but has still been labelled as good news for residents.

Deputy Chief Constable of Essex Police, BJ Harrington, said the drive is about making sure there are enough police constables ready to replace those who have resigned or retired.

The Fit the Bill campaign was launched on Monday at the police headquarters in Chelmsford by Mr Harrington, Gina Denham, community policing team sergeant, Sara Dean, dog training sergeant and Stuart Truss, detective inspector on the major crime team attended.

The idea was to show the variation of roles within the force.

Clive Stewart, chairman of Braintree District Neighbourhood Watch, said: “Anything that proposes improving the police force and giving them the resources they need to do their jobs is really good news.

“Residents will hopefully see the campaign as a positive thing for policing across the whole of the Braintree district.

“We of course will continue to work as closely as possible with Essex Police and support them in any way we can.”

With a change in crime trends, the public has questioned whether traditional ‘bobbies on the beat’ were a dying breed.

Last year it was announced the number of police stations in Essex would be reduced from 80 to 30.

With cyber crime, particularly credit card fraud at a record high of £618 million, the role of the force is evolving.

Mr Stewart agreed that policing needed to adapt going forwards but new technologies benefitted residents as well as criminals.

He said: “Crime has changed dramatically in all sorts of ways and so have the ways police have to deal with it.

“There are now so many ways that people can even contact police and the police staff must be up to date with the latest developments in crime.”