Residents in Waveney have a new way of engaging with the police force after nine roles dedicated to community engagement were announced by Suffolk Police.

The roles will work closely with the Safer Neighbourhood Teams with Suffolk Police saying they will help keep communities better informed of what the police force is doing.

In addition, the community engagement officers (CEOs) will identify crime trends in their area and be responsible for organising some public meetings.

For residents in Lowestoft, Beccles, and Bungay, the area's community engagement officer will be PC Amy Yeldham.

She said: 'We will work with different departments within the police force as well as our community partners.

'Our main focus is engaging with our community and community partners, getting information out to the public and getting information back from them as well by using social media for those that use it.

'We will also be going to events such as the Bungay Community Wellbeing event so people who can't really use social media can actually meet a police officer and talk to them.'

She added: 'We will also be promoting and working with our volunteers like the horseback volunteers and the specials and engaging with people who might want to become one.

'We are expected to assist with reassurance, patrols, and we are still fully functional police officers. We are not going to detract from that focus.'

PC Yeldham is one of nine CEOs in Suffolk, with PC Simon Green also covering the Halesworth area.

She said: 'We are encouraging people to invite us to events they think we might be good to come to and we are really keen to meet people who might not meet police officers otherwise and we are working with some of our community partners to do that.

'The main thing is supporting the community that I work with because I think that we need to push that a little bit more and encourage people to speak with us. I also want to support people with crime prevention.'

She added: 'The important thing is to remember residents still have their PCSOs and police officers on Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

'We are in addition to that but we support all different parts of departments while being the face of the local police officers.'