WARDENS in Darlington are being sent to incidents that a police chief says should be dealt with by his officers.

The problem has now led to a review of 'deployment protocols' being ordered in the town.

Insp Chris Reeves, who leads the town's anti-social behaviour unit, said since the wardens - civilians employed by Darlington Borough Council - had been issued with radio sets, police officers had been contacting them to attend non-emergency incidents, such as youths causing annoyance.

This procedure was criticised at a public meeting last Friday, which heard that wardens were sent to deal with 'rioting' youths at a community centre - despite police being called.

Bill Cook, chairman of Firthmoor Community Partnership Board, said there had been an incident on March 7 when youngsters were out of control.

"When you ring the police and they send a warden, that's not the way to go," he said. "I do feel the police are letting us down."

Insp Reeves said: "My concern is that the uniformed wardens were given radios for their protection. The police force see them as somebody to send to jobs.

"But they are not trained and they don't have the equipment.

"We are working on a deployment strategy now to try to put an end to that. We don't want them responding to jobs."

He added: "If somebody rings the police, I think they should get a police response.

"The wardens have a huge role to play, we just need to make sure that we are sending the right people to the right incidents."

But Coun Bill Dixon, Darlington council's executive member for community safety, said it was right that wardens were being deployed to such incidents.

"They are trained up to the same standard as a special police constable, apart from powers of arrest," he said.

"That is why they have been issued with state-of-the-art radio sets and full body armour. They are trained and capable of spotting what they should be doing.

"If you talk to the wardens they want to get out there and tackle anti-social behaviour."

Coun Cook called for more anti-social behaviour orders to be issued after the March 7 incident when youths ran amok in Maidendale House Community Centre, Burnside Road.

"We need to see anti-social behaviour orders now before it goes too far," he said. "The law needs to act."

Play worker Caroline Howgate, 34, had a football smashed into her head and face several times after she tried to reprimand the youngsters. Other staff were verbally abused.

Mother-of-four Ms Howgate said: "They were really out of control and mouthing off at you if you told them to behave."

The meeting also heard the estate's youth club regularly had to close because of bad behaviour.

Darlington's uniformed warden scheme was introduced in May 2000 and was the first of its kind in the region.

It attracted praise from police and local authorities around the country after a dramatic drop in crime.