A NEW policing body has been created to reduce demand for public services.

The 'Safer Gloucestershire’ board will call on the expertise and leadership of senior managers from a range of agencies across the county to anticipate potentially dangerous or harmful situations and plan solutions.

They aim to reduce demand for public services through early intervention and aim to be more proactive in responding to threats.

Gloucestershire’s chief fire officer Stewart Edgar, who chairs the new board said: “Gloucestershire is already a safe place to live and work. Our task is to make the county even safer.

“The public can be reassured that a recent review of community safety in the county highlighted many examples of some of the very effective work already being done in this area.

" But it also identified that the lack of a countywide approach was hampering the co-ordination of vital interventions and support to local agencies in reducing crime and disorder as well as leading to some duplication of effort.

“It’s not so much what we do but the way that we do it.

"The Safer Gloucestershire Board will address this, especially in areas such as domestic abuse, drugs and alcohol misuse, child sexual exploitation and the threat of terrorism.

"It will benefit from closer co-operation so that the “sum of the whole will be greater than the individual parts”.