Police constables are having to take on some of the work of PCSOs in the wake of huge cuts, Kent’s crime commissioner has admitted.

The number of Police Community Support Officers is being slashed in half as part of budget cuts totalling £16 million over the next three years.

Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner Mathew Scott admits the loss of about 100 PCSOs was “regrettable”.

But he says he was faced with little alternative as the government had insisted extra money it was providing was ring-fenced and could only be spent on recruiting new police officers.

Mr Scott made his comments as he faced questions from the Kent and Medway Crime Panel on Tuesday.

During the meeting he also revealed that to compensate for the reduction in PCSO numbers, police constables would take on some of their work.

Meanwhile, he said in each electoral ward there would be one dedicated police officer.

Mr Scott said: “The loss of PCSOs was regrettable… I would not have made [the decision] in different circumstances but it is one that communities will feel the benefits of police officers in their place.”

Government funding could not have been spent on PCSOs and had to go towards training of new police officers, he said.

Asked by the chairman of the Kent and Medway crime panel Mike Hill about how confident he was that the police officers would be able to do the work of PCSOs, Mr Scott responded: “They did a fantastic job….This is not something we would have done out of choice. It was something we needed to do to balance the books.

“I would love to have held on to a lot more. What was important to me was retaining as many of those local beats as possible.”

He emphasised that police constables were doing a different job to the PCSOs but had more powers.

Mr Scott said: “PCs can do more. They can interact with their communities and can intervene where they feel they need to.”

A number of the new PCs recruited were doing so having been a PCSO, he said.

Under the cost-cutting plans, 104 PCSOs are to be kept on but about 100 will lose their jobs.

Mr Hill said PCSOs had been a major success and said he was concerned that the visible presence of them in towns and villages would be lost.

Cllr Shane Mochrie-Cox, Labour Gravesham councillor, said the government was “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and suggested there should be a system of monitoring to check whether police officers were remaining in the areas assigned to them.