Ken Jones, the new Chief Constable of Sussex, has already made a favourable impression on many officers by joining street patrols twice in his first fortnight.

His insistence on more bobbies on the beat will also go down well with the people of Sussex.

A pilot project in Hove that concentrated on small-scale crime in the belief this would reduce more serious offences worked extraordinarily well.

This kind of policing is what Mr Jones is all about. He wants officers to be more accessible and visible all over the county.

It sounds simple and basic but it can be hard to achieve at a time when there are many and conflicting demands on the force.

Mr Jones will also find it hard to strike a balance between being tough on crime and being accused of being petty.

He heads Sussex Police at a time when it has been battered by many difficulties, including the shooting by officers of an unarmed man in Hastings and mistakes in the investigation over Jay Abatan, who was murdered in Brighton.

Mr Jones is a man of the people who left school at 16 with no qualifications and spent three years as a uniformed officer at the start of his career.

It will be unfair to judge him until he has had a year or two in one of the most demanding jobs in Sussex. But he has made a good start.