AS CUMBRIA police chiefs announced their budget for the coming year, an MP decided to find out first hand what challenges officers face on the front line.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins, who said he believes police officers' jobs are getting "more and more difficult", went out on the beat with a police constable to show his support, and listen to any concerns.

Mr Collins said an increasing number of new laws on the statute books meant more work for officers, and more funding was necessary.

There were fewer police in the county now than at any point in the last 20 years, while crime had risen, he said.

"I think they are doing an absolutely superb job," Mr Collins said of the county's police.

"But I think it would be a little bit easier if they had a little more money."

Mr Collins said there was cross-party agreement between the county's MPs to press for a change in the funding formula, to recognise the difficulties involved in rural policing like the distances officers need to travel.

Although he welcomed the announcement, reported in the Gazette, of an additional 49 officers for Cumbria, he hit out at what he claimed was inconsistent funding.

"You can't really fund the police on a basis of feast and famine - you have got to have steady, strong increases."

Police constable Kate Sutton took Mr Collins out on the beat.

The part-time officer said the police would always welcome more officers, and more money, as she was aware of the budget juggling which took place.

"That doesn't mean to say officers don't deal with incidents in the same way that they have always - we want to see a result and that's what we are after," she said.

PC Sutton said officers in rural areas could not rely on the immediate back-up that colleagues in urban areas benefited from.

This meant that they had to develop different skills in order to make arrests, she said.