East Surrey MP, Peter Ainsworth, has expressed his concern at news that eight out of thirteen volunteers at Lingfield Police Station have resigned following new regulations being introduced by Surrey Police.

The new rules have been bought in to standardise the service offered by Surrey Police across the whole county, and require volunteers to be computer literate, partake in essential training sessions and wear a standard issue police uniform.

Due to the number of volunteers who have chosen to withdraw their services from Lingfield Police Station following the imposition of the new regulations, the counter service will no longer operate.

Commenting, Mr Ainsworth said:

"I very much regret the decision by Surrey Police which has made it impractical for many of these hard working volunteers to continue their work. Given that the counter service at Lingfield will now cease to operate, the whole exercise seems to have backfired; unless, of course, the real objective all along was to get rid of the counter service.

"People would much rather have a service from someone in a pair of jeans than no service at all; and I see no benefit to the public in trying to standardise the service across Surrey, especially if the result is to standardise the service level at zero."