A DRIVE to recruit more PCSOs to boost neighbourhood police in Lancashire is under way.

The county's police and crime commissioner Clive Grunshaw revealed the move to councillors.

He told the meeting of the Lancashire Police and Crime Panels in Blackburn Town Hall on Tuesday: "The main thing to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour is to get as many police officers back on to the streets.

"But it's not just about police officers.

"It's about the PCSOs because while the police officers numbers are still below what we had in 2010 and I will mention Surrey as I always do.

"Surrey have 20 per cent more police officers than they had in 2010.

"We have just below the numbers that we had.

"But it's not just about police officer numbers which has been the fixation of the last government to try and get the numbers up so they could say 'There you go'.

"It's about police staff as well.

"We've had a reduction in police staff that I think has created issues within the force.

"In particular I think we are well down on the numbers of PCSOs.

"In 2010 we had over 450.

"Now we have an establishment of around about 220 but the actual numbers that are on the books are significantly less than that.

"I've always been a big supporter of PCSOs.

"We need to recruit them back.

"We need to get the numbers back up because police officers quite often get moved around and its difficult for police officers to build a relationship within a community before they get moved on to somewhere else.

"Whereas PCSOs can do just that. That is their purpose.

"I know there's reasons for it and part of that is the recruitment into police officers jobs.

"Let's face it being a PCSO is not as attractive as being a police officer.

"And the recruitment of PCSOs is a little bit more challenging than police officers.

"But we need to do that.

"What will keep the crime levels down is that connection with the community."