ANOTHER 80 Dorset Police staff are facing the axe. It means that more than 500 police officers and civilian workers across the county face losing their jobs as a result of cuts.

Police representatives have warned cut backs in the coming financial year will ‘severely impact’ on services.

Yesterday, a meeting of the Dorset Police Authority voted to freeze the policing precept for council tax and accept a one-off government grant.

But it will mean that to meet budget targets the equivalent of 558 full time police staff will be lost by March 2015.

Three budget options were available to the police authority for 2012/13.

The first option was to accept the government’s one-off council tax protection grant which would mean that the police precept would not increase and council tax would be frozen.

The second option was to increase the police precept by 3.3 per cent and the third option would have been to increase it by 3.95 per cent.

The third option would represent a £7 per year increase on council tax on a Band D property, but would have preserved 80 police jobs.

A survey by the Police Authority found that 74 per cent of people would support an increase above £7.

One area that will be hit by the cuts will be neighbourhood policing staff, as it is the only area in which Dorset Police approaches the national average in terms of staffing.

Dorset Police Federation Chairman Clive Chamberlain said: “To make cuts of this size, which have been forced on us by the government, will severely impact on the service Dorset Police can deliver.”

He added: “It’s forcing us to police the 21st century with less police then we had in 1970.”

Mr Chamberlain said the community would be the ones to suffer from the government’s decision.

Dorset Police receives the lowest amount of central government funding of any police authority in England.

Because of the way the grants are allocated, Dorset loses £2.5million a year to other parts of the UK.

Chief Constable of Dorset Police Martin Baker said: “There seems to be a perception that nothing goes on here.

“This may be a safe place to live but that’s because we keep it that way. It’s not by accident.”

He added: “My plea now is for the government to look again at the one-off grant and extend it for the Current Spending Review period.”