A major shake-up of Essex Police's traffic and operations division will mean a reduction in senior officers, it was confirmed today.

Four inspector posts will be lost through natural wastage across the county when the two divisions merge in April.

And about three sergeant posts will be cut by not replacing officers who have left the force.

Although there will be no reduction in constables, many officers will move to different stations within their part of the county.

The redeployment of traffic officers comes hot on the heels of the overhaul of rural policing, which saw many constables and sergeants relocated.

And it the follows widespread move of policemen and women from Colchester division to other stations to spread experienced officers more evenly throughout Essex.

Essex Police today confirmed the merging of traffic, which deals mainly with road policing, and operations to provide a better service for the public when it is enforced in April.

Operations is responsible for the force support unit, police helicopter, marine, diving and dog sections and contingency planning.

A police spokeswoman stressed there would be no loss of traffic units in north Essex. And she said all officers had been asked which traffic station they would prefer to move to and 74 per cent have had their first choice granted.

The police dog unit based at Ipswich Road will move to Stanway traffic headquarters in Colchester, where an armed response team will also be based. The Ipswich Road police station will remain open.

The number of traffic officers based at Stanway will increase by three to 29. The proposals have yet to be finalised in detail but so far it has emerged that:

The number of traffic inspectors will be reduced from ten to six

About three sergeant posts will go through natural wastage

The county will be split up into four new traffic/operations divisions: north will include Stanway, Bocking, Thorpe and Newport traffic stations

There will be one inspector in charge of each new division

In north Essex, the traffic inspector will be based at Stanway. There will not be an inspector based at Bocking.

When the merger plan was revealed in November, senior officers pledged there would be no reduction in frontline officers.

Last year, traffic officers were dismayed when all motorbikes used in road policing where withdrawn because of budget cuts.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.