THE head of the Lancashire Police Federation is assuring the people of Burnley that its new community crime fighters are not policing on the cheap.

Concerns have been raised after the move to put 14 crime prevention workers on the streets of Lancashire and to run a pilot scheme in Burnley.

The new Police Community Support Officers (CSOs) will support full-time officers in tackling anti-social behaviour, but in Burnley they will have the additional power to use reasonable force to detain suspects as well to stop and search cars.

The town's MP Peter Pike said he shared the concerns of the Police Federation, a body for serving police officers, and would be keeping the scheme under review.

Rank and file officers are worried that the new CSOs may lead to a reduction of regular beat bobbies and are a cheap alternative to traditional law enforcement methods.

Head of the Lancashire Police Authority, Dr Ruth Henig, said those concerns were discussed during a consultation period and that Lancashire's Chief Constable, Paul Stephenson had given his assurances this is not the case.

Dr Henig said: "The national federation has some concerns that these people may take the place of our officers. Because these people will be paid a lot less than police officers, some may think that we need more of them and less police officers. We understand their concerns and we have tried, as far as we can, to meet them to try to ensure that we still look to increase the number of police officers we have."

Dr Henig says the Police Federation will remain committed to putting more police into the force. "We want as many officers as possible out there on the streets tackling the issues that the public wants us to. It is not policing on the cheap because we see it as an addition to our resources and not a replacement of them."

Speaking about the additional powers of detention the Burnley CSOs will have, Dr Henig added: "We are not too keen on it, but we are willing to see how it works. We want to see if there are going to be any problems with the power to detain and what they will be."

Lancashire is the first county outside London to see Community Support Officers on the street.