WITH dozens of police next door, staff at a supermarket in Bolton could have expected to be feeling exceptionally safe.

After all, it would appear that officers are well placed to deal with any incidents which may take place as Asda's Burnden Park store on Manchester Road.

But, following a series of boundary changes, officers called out to incidents at the supermarket come not from the Scholey Street station, but Farnworth, several miles away.

K-division, which covers Bolton and is divided into four areas - central; south, based in Farnworth; east, based in Astley Bridge; and west, based in Horwich - was reviewed after Christmas.

Some officers were redeployed and PC Glyn Armstrong, K-division's representative for officers' body the Police Federation, said: "It seems a ludicrous situation but boundaries have to be drawn somewhere "I haven't had any specific complaints about the divisional boundary changes affecting performance but I can understand officers' unease."

An officer, who would not give his name, contacted The Bolton News to voice his concerns.

He said Farnworth-based police were having to cover more of the central borough, while those based in the town centre were being stretched towards Astley Bridge.

But Chief Inspector Martin Greenhalgh defended the boundary changes, which he says were aimed at improving efficiency through more balanced workloads.

He said officers spend most of their time away from the station out on patrol.

He said: "If a job comes in at Asda, clearly officers would not usually be deployed from Farnworth but would respond whilst on patrol in that area."

Concerns have also been raised about the effect of the changes on communications because officers in the east area operate on a different radio talk-group'.

PC Armstrong said if control room staff were not familiar with the area they might alert central area officers to an incident within their area boundaries at Astley Bridge, even though east area officers were closer.

"There are issues with the control room staff because they can't retain staff and you are getting inexperienced radio officers put under massive pressure," he said.

Mr Greenhalgh denied that there was a high turnover of staff in the control room.

"We've got a very good team of control room staff, who are well-trained and well resourced," he said.

Control room officers would alert any relevant officers who were closest to an incident, he added.