A NORTH-East police force is campaigning for Metropolitan status.

Cleveland Police wants talks with Home Office Minister Charles Clarke aimed at immediate financial help in recruiting 74 more bobbies by March next year - and extra cash to meet the costs of the long running Operation Lancet anti-corruption inquiry.

Cleveland was among 12 of the 43 English forces not to receive a share of the £15m Government allocation announced for rural police funding, while the £20m allocation to help tackle robbery went to five metropolitan areas - and missed Cleveland.

Two neighbouring forces, North Yorkshire and Durham received money under the rural policing initiative.

Councillor Ken Walker, chairman of Cleveland Police Authority, says in a letter to Mr Clarke that both those forces have at least 30 per cent less crime per 1,000 head of population than Cleveland.

He said: "From Cleveland's point of view, the fact is that the way in which the funding for rural policing and robbery crime has been distributed demonstrates yet again that, when judging policing needs and performance in our area, we should be compared to major metropolitan forces rather than the 'shire' areas.''

He said many of the 11 other forces excluded from a share of rural funding were city-based forces.

"What we want to emphasise to the Home Office is that if we are bracketed with the Metropolitan forces for this exercise, then it should apply across the board - for example in determining the levels of police officers we need, assessing our performance alongside those forces; and allocating funding for specific initiatives such as the recent robbery crime announcement.'