North Yorkshire Police cut front desk hours

The government is planning to cut its funding for the police by 20% by 2015

Opening hours at most of North Yorkshire's 33 police stations are being reduced in a bid to save money.

The front desk service is being scrapped altogether at Settle and Ingleton.

It is the latest in a series of measures from the force, as it looks to make job cuts and savings after losing up to £11 million of government money.

The force said it had looked at how many people walked into stations daily and adjusted their hours accordingly.

Front desk opening hours will remain the same at York, Scarborough, Pickering and Knaresborough.

'Minimise redundancies'

Assistant Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police Tim Madgwick said it was not yet clear how many people would lose their jobs.

"There will be some job losses but we're hoping to minimise redundancies, we'll probably be in a position in the next few weeks to confirm those," he explained.

Police forces across the country are looking at make redundancies in response to the government's announcement that it plans to cut its funding for the police by 20% by 2015.

The news of reduced opening hours comes after the force announced it was shutting its control room at Newby Wiske near Northallerton earlier this week.