“I’d hate to lose that local connection between the force and the people that they serve,” Storey said.
“I think also if you’ve got three cash-strapped forces in the North East coming together, you just end up with one larger cash-strapped force.
“If you fund us properly, then I think mergers can work, but, personally, I would like to see Cleveland stay out of this.”
Fuller added: “We already collaborate on a lot of areas of policing in any event, so, done in the right way, we could really go from strength to strength.”