A WAVE of new local policemen and women will soon be walking the beat in Dwyfor and Meirionnydd.

News that North Wales Police are aiming to recruit up to 20 officers in south Gwynedd has been given the thumbs up, with training set to take place in Dolgellau.

According to Ann Griffith, the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for north Wales, taking on the officers was a very positive move.

North Wales Police had originally struggled to attract enough applicants wanting to work in the area.

One of the main problems for people living locally was that they would have to commute daily to St Asaph for the duration of the six-month training course.

For some it would have involved a two-hour journey each way.

Now, the force has come up with a solution by locating the course at the police station in Dolgellau.

As a result, they received “more than expected “ applications from aspiring police officers.

The course starts next March and the successful candidates will start on the beat in the September.

Sergeant Iwan Lloyd Jones, who’s based in Blaenau Ffestiniog, helped with the recruitment drive.

He said: “We’d never done anything like this before. Until now, all of the training has been done centrally, either in HQ, or St Asaph, or prior to that in the regional training centres in Warrington and Cwmbran.

“So this was a new and quite a bold move for North Wales Police to relocate the training of new officers within one of the districts."

Read the full story in this week’s north editions of the Cambrian News, in shops now