COUNCIL tax rises could help return an estimated 100 bobbies back on the beat over the next two years, according to Durham Chief Constable Paul Garvin.

His request to increase the police element of the tax to the majority of County Durham's households by just 19p a week would meet the bill for a major shake-up in force-wide police communications and fundamental changes in the staffing of custody suites.

The increase, which will be considered by Durham Police Authority on Friday, would take the charge for a Band D property from £64 to £79.

If approved, it would bring Durham's police budget for 2003- 2004 to £95.7m, compared with just over £89m in the current financial year.

Mr Garvin said that despite these increases the charges would still remain the lowest levied by any of the 35 non-metropolitan forces in England and Wales.

He said: "We are being repeatedly told by members of the public they want the reassurance of seeing more officers on the streets and that is what we have been consistently doing year on year. The strength of the force is at an all-time high and we are looking to recruit more. The extra cash would enable us to release more officers back to front-line work."

Under the proposed re-organisation of the call-handling network the force plans to replace the headquarters control room and the five remaining divisional units with two centres. One will be the revamped headquarters complex and the other in Bishop Auckland police station.

Each of the new centres will be responsible for the around-the-clock handling of both emergency and routine calls from the public in the north and south of the county, respectively.

The centres will also handle radio traffic from police officers, a responsibility that in the past has been shared by headquarters and divisional communications rooms.

It has been estimated this package of changes, which will mean recruiting more civilian staff, could free more than 80 trained officers for front-line work.

Additionally, proposals to release the equivalent of 20 uniformed officers from custody work in police stations, by replacing them with civilian specialists would also be funded by the increase in council tax.