EVERY ward in Richmond is to have its own community police officer by the end of the year in a new scheme to make the police more identifiable and approachable.

A Community Intelligence Officer will be on hand in each area to deal with non-urgent matters relating to crime and disorder in a new drive by the police and Richmond upon Thames Council.

Fourteen officers are already on the beat with four starting this week in West Twickenham, Heathfield, Fulwell, Hampton Hill and Teddington and it is hoped that the full team of 18 will be in operation within a year.

Inspector Malcolm Cumber, Community Intelligence Officer for Richmond upon Thames, said: "We will be dealing with anti-social behaviour, crime and quality of life issues.

"We will put information into an intelligence system and use that to develop an action plan which would show how we are going to deal with the problems.

"We have connections with Richmond upon Thames Council, housing trusts, voluntary organisations with a lot of information sharing on the problems that aren't being noticed.

"We will all be working towards the same aim, reducing crime and fear of crime.

"We will deal with the sort of problems that are not quite for the police not quite the local authority, but together we can tackle them.

"If we are aware of a problem we can pass them on to the council."

The new community policing includes a variety of initiatives to make officers more accessible.

Police will attend the area consultative committees attended by councillors in each ward and drop in centres are also being planned for each ward.

They are already operational in Ham, Heathfield and Barnes, with the latest being launched in a Richmond supermarket this week.

Inspector Cumber said: "We run anti-graffiti projects-arranging anti-graffiti days.

"We are working with the youth offending team, getting young people doing community punishment orders to clean up the graffiti in teams."