Essex Police are preparing for one of the biggest changes in the force’s history as officers battle to slash £41million from their budget.

Chief Constable Jim Barker-McCardle and his team have spent months coming up with a new plan to revolutionise the way the force works.

Under the plans, there will be 388 fewer frontline police officers on the streets of Essex by 2015 and cops face radical changes to the way they work.

But as officers receive e-mails telling them where in Essex they will be posted as part of the changes, fears are growing officers’ links with the community could be eroded.

One officer, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s been terrible. There have been things like an officer from Shoebury being posted to north Colchester, a PC from Westcliff being posted to Clacton, lots of people from Southend being posted towards Epping, Grays and Harlow.

“I don’t know of anyone who’s going to be nearer their place of work than they are at the moment.

“There have been numerous e-mails from people all round the county saying ‘I’m not happy, does anyone want to swap?

“There was a PC being told he’s going to be, as of March 1, detective chief inspector at Basildon – it’s a mistake, but when you hear things like that, bearing in mind this has been months in planning, you clearly worry what’s going on.”

There is still a degree of uncertainty as well, because some officers have been given details of specific teams they will be assigned to, but details of their station have not been revealed.

Fears have already been raised by residents in parts of Essex that esablished policing teams will be replaced with officers from outside the area with no knowledge of their specific issues.

The local focus teams dealing with drugs raids will also be disbanded, despite knowing their areas inside out.

Instead, they will be replaced an 80-strong team based out of Boreham.

Some specialist roles such as Southend’s missing persons liaison officer have been scrapped.

Former Essex Labour MP, Angela Smith, now Baroness Smith of Basildon, said she was concerned about the impact on local communities. She said: “For the police, knowing their local community is really important.

“They build up a relationship with people and a huge amount of knowledge, and the worrying thing is with so many officers being moved across the county they will take that knowledge away with them and it will take years to build it up again.

“But the police have so little option because of the cuts.”

Officers who want to lodge an appeal have until November 9. The force is refusing to reveal where individual officers will be placed until then.

Mark Smith, chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: “We will ensure any change is done fairly and transparently with both the needs of the service and the individuals taken into account before anybody moves or changes role.

“We, like other organisations, have a diverse work force and the individual needs and circumstances will be taken into account.”

The federation is pushing for officer welfare to be taken account of in the appeal process – at the moment it is not a consideration.

The next step will be to find out which police stations will shut entirely.

Plans have already been announced to close some stations to the public.

Chief Constable Jim Barker-McCardle had said it would make sense to decide where police officers will be based first.

There are 21 stations in jeopordy across the county, so now it will be decide which ones will get the chop.

An Essex Police spokeswoman said records showed no evidence of a PC being offered a Det Chf Inspector’s role.

Assistant chief constable Tim Newcomb, head of Essex Police’s Reform Programme, said: “In order to ensure the force is ready for the launch of the new operational policing blueprint, we have carried out a postings process to move officers to the new structure.

“Every effort has been made to retain our neighbourhood policing officers where they currently are. However, the team have also had to take each of our 3,600 officers’ skill sets and home addresses into consideration during the process, so it has been a complex and challenging task.

“Now the process is completed, we have invited officers to appeal against their new posting if they do not feel is suitable.

“We are also evaluating the postings to make sure each is the best solution for the force. This includes ensuring local knowledge is retained in each community as we know this is key to providing a good quality policing service.”