Cumbria police have been handed extra time to beat plans to inflict savage cuts on the county’s police service, which will change crimefighting forever.

The chance to have your voice heard in a campaign by the Times & Star against proposed measures – already backed by 12,300 people – is not over yet, as the Government has given police officers until today to respond.

Cumbria’s Chief Constable Jerry Graham says officials should now sit up and listen to the thousands of people who have supported the campaign.

His cry came after the scale of public opposition to the measures, which would reduce the force to a “blue light emergency service”, was demonstrated to Whitehall.

A delegation including representaives from CN Group, which publishes the Times & Star, MPs and police delivered our petition against the planned cuts to Downing Street.

The consultation extension for policing views on one phase of possible cuts comes amid further warnings by Mr Graham that crimes such as burglaries and vandalism would only be dealt with “as and when an officer was available”.

Mr Graham has also urged police minister Mike Penning to come to Cumbria to see the impact potential cuts of £26m could have, insisting the force is not “crying wolf”.

The chief constable has warned crime could go up, jobs would go and officers may no longer pound the beat if the cuts, revealed earlier this month, get the go-ahead.

Mr Graham, speaking as a formal response on the plans was sent to Government, said he hoped officials would not make decisions “based on a spreadsheet”.

He said: “The danger is that we will transform into a force where we wait for harm to happen before we respond.

At the moment we prevent things from happening before we get to that stage.

“Our number one priority will always be to protect lives. That is more important than protecting property. But if our budget was cut then we would have to assess 999 calls on the level of threat, harm and risk.

Harm to individuals comes before harm to property – that’s the world we could be moving towards.”

Mr Graham has previously said that crime was already rising in the county, even before planned cuts have the chance to bite.

He pointed out there had been a seven per cent rise in offences since 2012, with experts predicting this would continue to go up.

But this put him at odds with the stance taken by the Government, which used figures covering a wider period from 2010 onwards to claim crime in Cumbria had fallen by nine per cent.

Mr Graham touched on this again, adding: “One of the things the Home Office would say is that crime in Cumbria is coming down.

“They would say that we are crying wolf and that police reform is working.

“Crime isn’t coming down and that is a statistical fact. “Lots of traditional crimes are coming down like cars being broken into and property crime.

“But sex crimes and rapes are going up. Fraud and cyber crime are going up.”

Mr Graham also spoke on the strength of the backing for the campaign.

He said: “I would hope that after 12,000 people signed CN Group’s petition that the Home Office will give us the courtesy of listening to what we have to say.

“I would hope they will make a fair assessment and reflect on what we say.

“I would hope they will have an open mind and don’t make decisions based on a spreadsheet.”

Crime commissioner Richard Rhodes said he did not want to see Whitehall “making decisions about Cumbria without understanding the true characteristics of the county”.

“We’ve got support from the six MPs and the petition and a lot of letters from councils,” he added.

“There is a wide expression of support for the police.”

Mr Graham and Mr Rhodes were sent more technical information last Wednesday to help understand the funding formula in more detail. A force spokeswoman said: “The extension is to give them time to consider this.”

The campaign was launched after police and Mr Rhodes were told of changes in the formula used to fund police forces.

It could lead to the loss of £9.5m from one source of cash. They expect a separate set of cuts in November, which are forecast to reach at least £11.5m.

Police chiefs say after taking account of pressures such as inflation, a total sum of £26m could be needed to be saved from 2016/17 over four years.

This comes on top of savings of £20m in recent years. The force currently has a budget of about £100m.

Before the credit crunch there were 1,274 officers in 2009.

Numbers were set to fall to 977 by 2019.

But Mr Graham said if the new cuts were applied purely to police numbers, the force would have to reduce the number of bobbies to about 600.

Police officers cannot be made redundant so cuts on this scale are likely to come from different sources.

Departments such as roads policing, dogs handling and organised crime squads could fall under the spotlight for potential savings.