A POLICE force introduced a county-wide telephone number for all non-emergency calls yesterday in a bid to stop people dialling 999 unnecessarily.

A national scheme to bring in a single non-emergency number began two years ago, but North Yorkshire Police had already decided to create their own.

Anyone wanting to contact the force can now dial 0845 60 60 247 if it is not an emergency. All calls will be charged at a local rate.

The new number is being widely publicised and an information leaflet is being sent to every household in the county. Leaflets, stickers and posters are also being distributed.

The old non-emergency numbers will be in operation until October 19 and then callers will hear a message directing them to the new number.

Head of public access Superintendent Iain Spittal said: "Since the force went to two control rooms, there has been confusion among members of the public as to which telephone number they should use to contact the police in a non-emergency situation.

"There were 11 different local numbers available, spread across the county, none of them particularly easy to remember or easy to find.

"Many people simply resorted to using 999, which unfortunately blocks access to the system for genuine emergencies and puts additional strain on call-handlers and control room staff.

"A national project to introduce a single non-emergency number started more than two years ago, but the reality is that this is unlikely to become operational for several years because of technical and other difficulties.

"Rather than wait, the force took the decision to go ahead with our own scheme and introduce a single, memorable number to replace the 11 non-emergency local numbers.

"This new 0845 number does exactly that, being easy to remember, easy to key in and symbolically representing the fact that we are available to provide a policing service 60 seconds of every minute, 60 minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

"I genuinely believe that this new single number will reduce 999 calls and bring about even further improvements to the service we provide."