Officials at Darlington Borough Council have held talks with the Chief Constable of Durham Police after a string of complaints.

During one incident a gang of youths bombarded an old people's home with stones but wardens were allegedly told police were too busy to respond.

Chief Constable Paul Garvin apologised and said problems were being addressed.

He said: "There have been a small number of incidents that have been poorly handled by police, but there are also many thousands of calls that are handled properly every day, every single month.

Call centre

"We are addressing some of the poor responses and are are looking to make sure there are no more foul-ups."

Since January, all calls to Darlington police station have been dealt with by a police call centre in Bishop Auckland.

During a meeting at the town hall, council leader John Williams demanded to know whether the new call centre was working.

He said many residents had complained that when they rang police for help they were left hanging on the line or had to listen to recorded music.

Mr Garvin said the force dealt with 14,000 calls from the public every month in Darlington - an increase in volume of 20%.

He said: "The problems we have had are absolutely nothing to do with the reorganisation.

"It is this huge increase in calls that is causing us some difficulty."

He said a new radio system had led to the reorganisation and other forces were also centralising their handling of calls.