Police have defended their plan to recruit villagers in the fight against rural crime after a parish council hit out at being asked to take on the role of amateur informants.

Craven Country Watch, launched by Skipton PCs Andy Bradley and Wayne Smith, involves people volunteering to patrol their areas and report any suspicious vehicles or characters.

But Sutton Parish Council has written to Home Secretary Jack Straw demanding more bobbies on the beat before they are prepared to patrol their own communities.

The letter asks the Home Secretary if the police have lost control of rural areas.

Councillor Ken Hart, a Sutton parish councillor and Craven district councillor, said: "We asked if the Home Secretary admitted that the police can't police rural areas.

"The bobbies we have are doing a good job with restricted manpower. We think they need re-enforcements with professional officers on the streets.

"We are not against helping the police if they are up to strength - but we don't want to be a cheap police force."

Fellow parish and district councillor Steve Place said people were not against supporting the police so long as they felt there were enough police officers on the streets in villages where petty crime was on the increase.

PC Andy Bradley said Sutton was the only village which had opposed the project.

"We held a series of meetings in the area which 82 people attended and 55 volunteered to join the scheme. They represented parish councils, farmers and business people," he said.

"We had earlier written to 75 councils explaining the scheme and Sutton was the only one to come back with these comments."

He stressed that people were not expected to make arrests but to patrol the community about twice a month and report back to police.

Sergeant Steve Scott, who oversees the Cross Hills area, denied there had been a reduction in the number of officers patrolling the area.

"There has been no fall since we started local area policing five years ago - there is still a sergeant and eight police constables," he said.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Country Watch schemes are not intended to replace the services of police officers. They are there as a partnership that the government is trying to encourage between local communities, the police and businesses. The aim is to fight crime together."

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