RESIDENTS who want to get in touch with their local bobby at all hours have been urged to let sleeping policemen lie.

Ribble Valley has recently had its policing methods reshuffled to create four operation centres in Longridge, Whalley, Clitheroe and Chatburn.

The same number of constables and officers will still cover all the area as before but the new system, which involves major changes in shift patterns, means better use of police time and an overlap in shift takeovers so more police are available at key times.

However, though the rural beat police within the Ribble Valley work from the control centres, they still live in police houses.

To avoid disturbing them during the day when they are probably asleep after night duty, a voicemail system has been introduced for people living within their beat bobbies' area to leave messages.

Inspector Bob Ford who covers the Ribble Valley area said: "Anyone wishing to report a crime is still urged to either dial 999 in serious cases, or the regular number 01200 443344 they have used in the past. This will still be directed to control centre in Blackburn where the appropriate officers will be deployed. "The voicemail number for each individual constable is for community use. If someone wants the beat policeman in their area to perhaps call in for a coffee and a chat about a particular issue, they can ring the appropriate number, leave a message and the officer will get back to them when he is back on duty."

Insp Ford added that the beauty of the new system was that messages left on voicemail could be picked up from anywhere, so if an officer was on duty he could link into the system.

The individual numbers, prefixed with 01200 for the Valley's rural beat officers are Chatburn office PCs Pat Sutton 458719 (Gisburn), George Korol 458718 (Gisburn), Paul Atkinson 458717 (Waddington), Cliff Woodcock 458716 (Chatburn) and John Barber 458715 (Newton).

Longridge officers: PCs John Treacy 01200 458714 (Chipping) and Peter Hodkinson 01254 353014 (Ribchester).

Whalley office: PCs Andrew Lang 01254 353017 (Mellor), Mark Holgate 01254 353016 (Langho), Ken Boyes 01254 353015 (Hurst Green), Paul Warwick 01282 472914 (Sabden) and Lee Plaiter 01282 472915 (Read/Simonstone).