KENT Police chiefs and members of the county's police authority have spoke of their "shock and disappointment" at a Home Office decision to cut recruitment funds for police community support officers (PCSOs) from April next year.

The Kent Police Authority had originally budgeted for an extra 474 police community support officers by April 2008. Now Kent and Medway will only have funding for 273 posts which are already planned to be recruited by next Spring.

The authority and force are now assessing the impact this will have on the roll out of neighbourhood policing across the county and what can be done to make up the shortfall.

They are committed to ensuring that every neighbourhood has a dedicated named officer or team by 2008 and will be consulting with partners to identify the best way to achieve this.

Kent's Chief Constable Mike Fuller said: "We are obviously concerned that the amount allocated to us is being cut. This quite clearly could affect the speed at which we deliver neighbourhood policing and the cover we provide.

"We remain totally committed to every neighbourhood having a named officer or team so that we can work with residents and local organisations to tackle local problems locally."

Ann Barnes, chair of the Kent Police Authority, said: "I’m shocked the Home Office has withdrawn from our police community support officer funding to the tune of around £3.5million. The authority has budgeted for over 400 new posts and now the Home Office has pulled the plug.

"It’s very disappointing that we are now around 200 police community support officers short of what we were expecting and this will obviously have a huge impact on our neighbourhood-policing programme.

"We will have to overcome this the best way we can to make sure the people of Kent get the neighbourhood policing they deserve."