POLICE have been told by an MP to "get their act together" after she said there was confusion in responding to two armed robberies in Glazebury.

Warrington North MP Helen Jones says delays to attend the incidents, both at Bents Garden Centre on Warrington Road, were due to a mix up over whether Cheshire or Greater Manchester should respond.

But Cheshire Police records say a patrol got to both within 10 minutes.

According to the MP, the first occasion saw a response time of 35 minutes ten of which were wasted by the callers being put through from one force to another. When the same store was robbed again just hours after the first it took another took 30 minutes for the police to arrive, she says.

She said: "The police need to get their act together and quickly.

"The public have a right to expect the quickest response time possible to such serious incidents, a point I shall be making forcefully to the Chief Constable and the Home Office.

"I am told this problem surfaced some years ago but had supposedly been resolved."

Last year the county's police responded to 83 per cent of emergency calls within their target time and on these occasions, they say, it was no different.

"We got the first call at 15.44pm and within the first minute we were dispatching patrols and the first one arrived within five minutes," said a police spokesman.

"The second time there were three patrols on the way within two minutes and the first one arrived within the first ten minutes.

"Both these times are within Cheshire's target set by the government of 15 minutes."

Police also met last week with British Telecom to change the system so that 999 calls put through to the wrong police force can be passed on more quickly. This is in response to the increased use of mobile phones for emergency calls which pick up on the strongest signal.

But even before this, said the spokesman, the delay was only "slight".