"Wasting police time", Conservative leader David Cameron called it.

Last Wednesday Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said that the "definitive answer" to the contentious question of merging Surrey and Sussex police was No.

It was the result that Peter Ainsworth, who campaigned against the forced amalgamation of the police authorities, had been awaiting.

The East Surrey MP said: "It is just a pity that so much time was wasted by the Home Office forcing a shotgun wedding that clearly was not going to work."

A spokesman for Surrey Police said: "Better Government funding is the main issue for Surrey not the structure that we inhabit. Funding remains a chronic and pressing concern."

Tony Blair has retreated from the flagship policy, admitting at Prime Miinister's Questions that the proposals were "not sensible" but refused to rule the super-police authorities out altogether.

They were, he said, still on the agenda. The ditched plans to merge Sussex and Surrey have cost the Sussex force £1 million.

Mr McNulty, speaking at a Local Government Association conference in London, said greater "strategic co-operation" between forces would be encouraged.

The decision to abandon the mergers plan represents a major U-turn for the Government. Ministers had argued reducing the country's police forces from 43 to 17 was essential to tackling terrorism and organised crime.

But the plans were opposed by both Sussex and Surrey police authorities and Tory MPs. Nick Herbert, Tory MP for Arundel and South Downs and his party's spokesman on policing, welcomed the Government's climbdown.

He said: "It was a serious mistake to embark on forced mergers which were expensive and would have reduced local accountability."