A POLICE chief is urging his bobbies to do more to help people suffering from low level anti-social behaviour.

County Durham's new chief constable Paul Garvin wants his men and women to offer their expertise and knowledge to people who call them out for problems that turn out not to be police matters.

He plans to give them more freedom to offer help with problems such as noise - a council responsibility - and point people in the right direction.

Mr Garvin, who took over earlier this year from George Hedges, said: "I don't want people to get the idea we are switching to the social side of policing at the expense of tackling crime. The reality is I want to develop more of both."

He said that in the last decade the force had been 'really, really good' at tackling crime.

But added: "We haven't been so good at tackling low-level anti-social behaviour which plagues the life out of people on a daily basis.

"And when police constables and sergeants have in the past been asked to deal with things that have nothing to do with the police there has been a reluctance to get involved.

"These same officers have the expertise, knowledge and ability to link into other organisations where responsibility for solving the problem rests.

"But we as an organisation have not encouraged them to. It is a challenge for us all to change the way we do business, to provide an effective response to the original complaint.

"We need to put ourselves in the position of the complainant and ask how we would want the police to respond if it was our own complaint.''

A police spokesman added that Mr Garvin wanted officers called to a job that was not a police matter to explain whose responsibility it is and help the people get in touch with them so they can get a resolution to the problem.'