One-off elections for controversial new police commissioners will cost Westcountry taxpayers nearly £2 million – the equivalent of 50 police constables – and £350,000 more than the annual budget of the scrapped police authority.

In July, Home Secretary Theresa May announced that the first election of new "Police and Crime Commissioners" would take place in May 2012.

The Government believes that the commissioners would "transfer power back to the people", better represent communities and understand "their crime and antisocial behaviour priorities".

But the move has attracted widespread criticism from Opposition MPs and at the grass roots, where police authority members fear the powerful posts could be won by extremist candidates in the event of a low turnout.

No costs for transforming the structure of police governance – at a time when forces may face a 25 per cent cut in budgets – have so far been published by the Home Office.

However, Mike Bull, the current chairman of the Devon and Cornwall Police Authority, said estimates from the 12 local authorities in the region put the election bill alone at £1.9m.

"No other elections are being held in 2012, other than the one-third elections of councillors in Plymouth and Exeter, so virtually the totality of cost would fall upon the policing budget," Mr Bull told the Western Morning News.

"What electorate turnout is to be expected when that will be the only local election happening? Experience tells us that the turnout will be very low and that tends to play into the hands of the single-issue or extreme candidates.

"The estimated cost of running these first elections for the Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall totals a staggering £1,936,000. This exceeds the totality of the present Police Authority budget by £350,000. And that makes no provision at all for any costs of the new Commissioner – no salary for him or her, no offices, no cost of the new Police and Crime Panel, no staff – nothing."

Mr Bull, an elections returning officer in his former job at chief executive of Mid Devon District Council, said the election costs would pay for dozens of officers. The force is facing having to cut 180 officers from 3,500, between 2011 and 2013.

"These total costs are already shocking, truly shocking in terms of their impact on taxpayers," Mr Bull said. "And they are additional ones.

"They take no account of the multiplicity of other costs that will arise and yet no calculations of costs or cost comparisons have been made.

"None have been made public at all by the Home Office or Government yet – not even any indication of what a Commissioner would be paid.

"A police constable, with all on-costs included, costs on average £38,532 per annum. Thus the costs of the 2012 elections for the commissioner in Devon and Cornwall equate to 50 police constables.

"That is truly staggering. Is that what the public want their money spent on?"

According to the Government's report Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting Police And The People, the new commissioner's role will be to "hold the Chief Constable to account" for hitting those priorities "and being able to fire her or him if they do not".

The report also laid out plans to create "Police and Crime Panels" in each force drawn from "locally elected councillors from constituent wards and independent and lay members" – immediately compared to the current police authority set up – to hold commissioners to account.

It also said that raising the police precept – a charge which is part of council tax bills – would be subject to a referendum.

None of the costs of the change, the elections, or commissioners' pay have so far been detailed.

Consultation on the report ends on September 20.

No figures on the overall cost of the commissioners were yesterday available from the Home Office.

A spokesman said: "Democracy does cost money, however increasingly policing has been ruled by increasing levels of bureaucracy at enormous cost to the taxpayer.

"Accountability can not disappear. There needs to be a mechanism to hold the police to account. This Government is clear that democratic accountability is both the fairest and most cost-effective method of achieving this.

"It is certainly more effective than the invisible and unaccountable police authorities we have currently."