Essex Police Authority has agreed to build a call centre capable of employing 150 people in the Chelmsford area.

The £20m development would cost £8.5m a year to run and would deal with all non-emergency calls in the county.

The call centre would be built either inside or close to Police Headquarters in Springfield.

Latest figures show 87 per cent of non-emergency calls are answered within 15 seconds compared to the Essex Police target of 90 per cent.

Essex Police Authority Chairman Robert Chambers said: "Essex Police Authority realises that the telephone answering service and follow-up calls for non-emergency calls needs to be improved.

"The authority has agreed in principle to approve a new centre capable of handling all non-emergency calls in a much more customer friendly manner."

Support staff in local police stations currently deal with non-emergency calls with police hoping to move them into the new centre.

Chief Constable of Essex Police David Stevens said calls to Essex Police are increasing every year and require a centralised system for filtering the information.

The move was agreed by members at a police authority meeting on Monday. A five-person panel of authority members will decide the detail of the plans with the development expected to be finished by 2007.

Published Thursday September 16, 2004