POLICE officers are sending a town's uniformed wardens to incidents they should be attending themselves, The Northern Echo can reveal.

The problem has led to a review of "deployment protocols" being ordered in Darlington, according to Inspector Chris Reeves, who leads the town's anti-social behaviour unit.

He said that since the wardens - civilians employed by Darlington Borough Council - were issued with radio sets, police officers had been contacting them to attend non-emergency incidents, such as youths causing annoyance.

A public meeting on Friday 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: "When you ring the police and they send a warden, that's not the way to go. I do feel the police are letting us down."

Inspector 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.

"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 Councillor 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 and capable of spotting what they should be doing," he said.

Darlington's uniformed warden scheme, the first of its kind in the region - was introduced in May 2000. It attracted widespread praise after a dramatic drop in crime.