Lancashire's police dog unit is being cut and handlers re-deployed after bosses said some front-line areas were becoming "increasingly stretched".

The unit will be reduced from 35 to 21 handlers, although the team has been operating with around 10 short for some time.

Bosses said that handlers losing their post would be re-deployed to more front-lines roles within the force.

They blamed the move on the collapse of the merger with Cumbria which they said had left the force short of numbers and struggling to deal with some incidents.

Around four dogs left without a handler will be re-homed.

Leading MPs and Police Federation chiefs have expressed concern over the implications it could have for crime fighting.

The dogs help with searches and assist in police operations such as crowd control.

A police spokesperson said: "Lancashire Constabulary is a consistently high performing force, but is increasingly stretched in its capacity because of new threats and increased demand particularly in important areas of its protective services such as protecting vulnerable people, counter terrorism and serious and organised crime.

"We need to identify areas for change which will enhance our protective services but which will not impact negatively on other key priorities for us like neighbourhood and response policing.

"By looking at how we are structured, we have been able to identify ways in which we can do that.

"One of these is around the number of dog handlers we have which we are proposing to reduce.

"This does not mean that officers are losing their jobs.

"It means that we are reshaping the dog handling service to free up more officers to work in some of the more under-resourced aspects of our business."

Steve Edwards, chairman of the Lancashire Police Federation which represents rank and file officers, said they would monitorthe situation.

He said: "The worrying thing is the police budget is increasingly under pressure and they are not going to come up with more money and Lancashire police has a difficult task balancing financial implications and resources.

"If there are some major flaws in the proposals we will challenge them.

"The redeployment of our members face means we will make sure they are done on a fair and equitable basis."

Last year it was revealed that the unit was struggling to recruit enough talented recruit dogs.