Essex police have announced they will have to cut £8.5 million from their budget in the next year, and will lose over a hundred police officers.

The “unprecedented” cuts are being made after the government announced on Wednesday provisional figures suggesting the policing grant for Essex will be £172.8 million for the next year.

This is a 4.7 per cent reduction on the figure of £181.3m for this year, and puts the total figure of cuts in the past six years close to £100 million.

The central government grant makes up roughly two-thirds of the overall policing budget, with the other third coming from council tax.

With about 84 per cent of the overall policing budget spent on the salaries of police officers, Police Community Support Officers (PCSO’s) and police staff, the reduction in budget means there will be a reduction in the workforce next year.

In recent months residents have expressed concern about the lack of visible police officers to act as a deterrent to crime in Waltham Abbey, which had its police station closed in Sun Street in 2011 due to budget cuts.

Last Year, a YouGov poll shows that the people value seeing visible police officers on patrol in the streets, and that those who see police in uniform at least once a week are more likely to have confidence in their local force.

In March last year Essex police had 3,257 full time police officers available for duty, but this figure now looks to be further reduced.

In response to the announcement, Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh said, despite cuts to the police force, “reducing crime and bringing offenders to justice must be at the forefront of our thinking”.

He added: "Regrettably it is the case that we will be policing Essex with a smaller workforce. The number of police officers in the county will fall over the next few years and there will be changes in the way in which PCSOs and police staff provide invaluable support to frontline policing.

“The force has already planned for a reduction in the overall number of PCSOs to 250 by the end of 2015/16.”

The top police officer in Essex said the force now faces new challenges, with a reduced work force and a rise of internet-enabled criminality, including the online grooming of children, child abuse imagery, cyber-bullying and complex fraud.

He said: “These new ‘virtual world’ crimes are now ‘real world’ challenges and we must be ready to face them.”

"Over the next 12 months we will continue to develop opportunities for collaboration, not just making the most of the existing close working with Kent but being even more ambitious and exploring opportunities with other forces and partner agencies.”