The cost of policing Sussex has broken the £100-per-household threshold for the first time.

A typical Band D homeowner will pay £105.12 this year - last year's bill was £97.74.

Sussex Police Authority agreed the increase - 14p extra per week on council tax bills - to help pay for more police "deputies" to patrol the streets.

The force is hiring an extra 150 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), bringing their strength up to 224.

Their brief is to walk the streets, increase police visibility, reassure the public and tackle anti-social behaviour.

Chief Constable Ken Jones said: "PCSOs are already making a difference as we bring back neighbourhood policing.

"They reinforce, not replace, other methods of policing.

"They enable police officers to do their job differently, and better, freeing up their time for the tasks which require their higher level of training and skills."

A report to the authority last year showed regular police spent only 17 per cent of the time on front-line duties.

Mr Jones said: "PCSOs spend up to 80 per cent of their duty hours patrolling on foot or, increasingly, on bikes."

The new PCSOs will be shared between five police divisions: Hastings and Rother: up from 12 to 34; Wealden, Lewes and Eastbourne: 37 (currently 11); Chichester, Arun, Worthing and Adur: 53 (15); Brighton and Hove: 55 (20); Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex: 45 (16).

The increased budget will also fund a 24-hour crime recording and investigation bureau. It will be staffed by 74 people and aims to improve the service for people reporting crime by phone.

The tax increase will make up for reduced funding from the Government. Even with the hike, the demand will still be one of the lowest in England and Wales.

Police authority chairman Mark Dunn said: "The authority has had to make difficult choices.

"We face additional and unavoidable spending pressures, many of them imposed by national agreements, and these far outweigh any additional funding provided by the Government.

"At the same time, the public tell us they want more visible policing and a better service when they contact us to report crime. This all costs money."

The increase has been greeted with disdain by the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers.

It said extra money should first be spent on increasing the number of beat officers, not PCSOs.

Sussex chairman Graham Alexander said: "If support officers are supplementary to a well-maintained police strength, that's great.

"But you get a sinking feeling that police numbers may fall to a whole range of people performing a whole range of functions."