The Essex Police diving unit has been axed in a budget the county's top officer described as "positive".

Chief Constable David Stevens and his team came up with the plans to sink the section in December in a bid to help the force make cuts of £4.185 million.

Yesterday the Essex Police Authority pulled the plug on the 50-year-old unit, making a saving of £53,000.

The meeting heard that Essex Police divers, based in Rayleigh and Burnham, were used operationally 60 times over the past two years and went on 57 training dives.

Mr Stevens said many of the operational dives were in connection with the hunt for the body of missing Tilbury schoolgirl Danielle Jones.

The force has estimated divers will be needed 30 to 40 times a year and will come from other forces, the commercial sector and possibly even the Armed Forces.

"The resources are freed up for frontline operational policing. We are quite satisfied the needs can be met in this cost-effective way," Mr Stevens said.

But Sue Kelly, Essex Police Federation chairman, said afterwards: "It's not ridiculous to think we could have another Danielle Jones situation where you have got to go searching for a missing person and yet we just wiped out the diving unit."

In setting the budget, the authority also agreed to "mothball" one of the force's two launches and redeploy a sergeant and two constables from the marine section.

Published Tuesday, February 12, 2002