OKEHAMPTON police inspector Keith Perkin is leaving the job after 13 months to return to CID.
The inspector, who has been successful in getting extra police officers for Okehampton and reducing assault and disorder offences, will become detective inspector and crime manager at Teignbridge with responsibility for Teignmouth, Newton Abbot and Chudleigh.
He will be succeeded by Sally Hutchings, who is currently acting sergeant at Plymouth and takes over on June 10.
Insp Perkin, who was a detective sergeant before moving to Okehampton, said detective inspector posts did not come up very often so he took the opportunity when it came his way.
'I have enjoyed being at Okehampton and in the last 12 months we have been able to increase officers on patrol, especially at weekends which has had an affect on the number of disorder offences,' he said.
'Police performance in West Devon, and particularly Okehampton, has been identified as good within our police area which includes Torbay, the South Hams and Teignbridge.'
Okehampton has also met three out of four of its crime detection targets and 12 out of 16 operational targets this year.
Insp Perkin said links between the police and the community were improving and the appointment of a parish constable had been particularly successful.
'On top of our community policemen in Hatherleigh and Okehampton we also have two officers working part-time in Chagford and as time goes on there should be more personnel for the Okehampton area,' he added.
He said complaints to the police were fairly infrequent and from that he would gauge that local people were quite happy with the policing situation at the moment.