The Neighbourhood Team has problem solving plans in place to tackle the issue of off-road vehicle related ASB and also youth-related nuisance in the town centre. These are shared plans working with key partners in order to target a number of aspects of these types of offending:
1) Maximise chances of catching or identifying those involved, and then enforcement action taken against them from criminal prosecutions to enforcement against their housing tenancies,
2)Where children are identfied as being involved, work undertaken with partners and parents to try to support and divert rather than look at purely punitive measures.
3)Encouraging reporting so that we have the information we need to tackle those involved.
Although these remain significant issues, we are continuing to see successes with both problems.
In the last few months we have conducted a number of Operations with the Force Off Road Bike Team, which has resulted in several bikes seized and offenders prosecuted for a variety of related offences in the area. We have also made use of non-criminal sanctions such as Community Protection Warnings and working with colleagues in St Leger Homes on tenancy breaches where relevant. We are also working with partners, such as social care, on providing support to families directly involved.
Unfortunately, though we did see a reduction in nuisiance bike/quad reporting in the last couple of months, the better weather is leading to a ressurgence, so this remains a key focus for the team.
Reports for youths involved in ASB have dropped significantly since this work began and though there is still work to be done, we are now seeing the fruits of out labour. We are still seeing gatherings of kids in the town centre, but reports around actual anti social behaviour have been very low in recent months.
With respect to the issue of drug supply in the area, we continue to work with our Fortify (gang enforcement) colleagues to tackle organised criminality in the area through a range of enforcement and engagement tactics. We have had a number of significant results over recent years in relation to those involved, with a number of key individuals now imprisoned and work ongoing to target the remainder. Our results have led to a shifting picture of organised criminality in the area, leading us to have to continually adapt our approach. We remain reliant on the local community to report information through to us, and we have had several signicant results in the area over recent months on the back of such information, and have has successful warrants and arrests on the back of such information in recent months..