MORE than 100,000 applicants for new police constable roles at Wiltshire Police crashed the force’s website upon launch yesterday afternoon.

The main website had a holding page while the site was experiencing high volumes of traffic and the site crashed for five minutes at 4pm when the job application first went live.

The force announced it was to take on a new batch of constables last week at a stating wage of £19k, and, with the only way to apply being online, there were more than 282,000 hits at www.wiltshirepolice.uk within the first hour.

A spokesman for the force said: “There was a five-minute delay in the recruitment tool being live due to the fact that we had over 100,000 hits in the first five minutes. However, IT managed to get it up at 4.05pm.

“In the first hour there were 282,500 hits on the website for the recruitment.

“The Wiltshire Police website temporarily had a holding page placed on it due to the high level of traffic we had been receiving. Certain systems have had to be closed whilst the recruitment process goes on in order to ensure that it doesn't crash.

“We will work to resume normal service of the website as soon as possible. The holding page contains the pre-assessment tool link, which applicants must apply through.”

This is the first time any force in the south west has recruited since the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010 and applications will be closed once required levels of interest have been met.

To apply follow the link to the pre-assessment tool on www.apollo.adc.uk.com/s/wiltsexpcrec13. There is also a link is also available on the Wiltshire Police Facebook and Twitter site.

The initial three steps of the application process will take up to 30 minutes to complete and are split into registration, realistic job preview and eligibility assessment.

The force will be recruiting police officers to create a pool of applicants from which to fill a number of future intakes, with a view to successful candidates commencing work for Wiltshire Police in late 2013 and early 2014.

The application process is very robust and lengthy, taking around 46 weeks from the initial application stage to the date employment will commence.

For more information please call the dedicated HR Recruitment phone line on 01380 734 132 or email policerecruit@wiltshire.

pnn.police.uk.

Then force has made clear people should not call 101 for information about the recruitment process.