A SCHEME giving people more say on how their community is policed has been hailed a success.

‘Balance Your Bobbies’, which operates in Wrexham and Flintshire, is the first of its kind in the UK and enables people to say where they want officers to target resources.

It was devised by North Wales Police Authority and North Wales Police and residents can sign up for the scheme via the force’s website.

Using on-screen slide bars, users can indicate which issues they would like the police to concentrate on in their area.

But nobody is able to allocate more than 100 per cent of the available resources and the system will reject attempts to do so.

Rhian Rees Roberts, policy officer with North Wales Police Authority, said: “The whole purpose of Balance Your Bobbies was to provide members of the public with an additional avenue to express their views to members of their local neighbourhood policing team.

“We’re delighted with the way people have responded to this opportunity to have their say and influence strategy. Between July 1 and September 15, we had 2,824 submissions via the website which is far more than we could ever hope for in terms of attendance at public meetings.”

Supt Jeremy Vaughan, head of confidence and public safety, said: “Police budgets are finite so it is important we find out how people think we should deploy resources.

“Balance Your Bobbies is proving to be a highly effective way of enabling the public to engage with North Wales Police and help us balance the resources of police in their area.”