The chief constables from the East Midlands' five police forces have gone to Westminster to ask for more money. They claim insufficient funding is hampering their ability to tackle terrorism and serious crime.
The region's forces face a funding gap of �80m and may be forced to scrap a new unit set up to tackle serious crime, officers warn.
They will press regional MPs for funding to be put on a par with other forces of a similar size and workload.
The talks were planned before the latest terror attacks but the incidents in London and Glasgow.
Officers point to a historically much lower funding level in the East Midlands, which includes Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, than the national average for England and Wales.
Derbyshire claims it gets 25% less than the recognised formula would suggest and even Nottinghamshire, with its higher crime rate, claims it is 17% below average.
Nottinghamshire's Chief Constable Steve Green, who co-chairs East Midlands collaborative work between five forces, said: "The collective funding gap over the next three to four years is about �80m.
"But certainly if we could get the funding formula implemented properly that would give the police forces in the East Midlands an additional �14.8m. That would be a good start."
A Home Office statement said: "The police funding settlement for 2006/07 was approved by Parliament on 6 February. It builds on enormous investment by this government in the police service since it came to power.
"On a like-for-like basis, government grant and central spending on services for the police will have increased by nearly 50% or �3.5bn between 2000/01 (�7,072m) and 2006/07 (�10,574m)."
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The collective funding gap over the next three to four years is about �80m
