Essex Police announces anti-social behaviour hotspots

Cowdray Avenue and the Greenstead estate have been highlighted by Essex Police as having disproportionately high levels of anti-social activity.

Tendring village, near Clacton, has also been flagged by officers as needing intervention.

It comes as the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex Roger Hirst announced he will be investing an extra £1.1million into the scheme.

Crackdown - Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex Roger Hirst (Image: Newsquest)

The earmarked areas will see high visibility patrols and targeted intervention to crack down on nuisance behaviour.

About 30,000 hours of officer and partner patrols will be undertaken over nine months across the areas, including coordinated, focused nights of action to target persistent wrongdoing.

Anti-social behaviour has fallen in Essex by more than 60 per cent since 2016, Essex Police said.

But there were still 18,771 offences of its nature recorded in the year to the end of May.

Visibility - police officers Brad West and Darcie Hughes respond to an incident in Cowdray Avenue (Image: Newsquest)

Mr Hirst said: “It is unacceptable that people have to suffer from anti-social behaviour in their communities.

“By tackling these issues early, we can stamp out this behaviour and make it very clear this is not acceptable and that there will be consequences.”

The hotspots, which are part of 11 across the county, have been identified using the past five years of recorded anti-social behaviour incidents, feedback from the public and from partners in community safety partnerships.

Each area will benefit from extra police visibility patrols, council and police partner patrols and “robust enforcement” against the behaviour.

Plea - Deputy Chief Constable Andy Prophet called on residents to continue reporting anti-social behaviour (Image: Essex Police)

The teams will be able to tackle issues such as littering, graffiti, fly-tipping, street drinking, and noise nuisance by issuing fixed penalty notices as well as verbal and written warnings.

Deputy Chief Constable Andy Prophet, who is the NPCC lead for anti-social behaviour, said: “Anti-social behaviour ruins lives and damages communities.

“It is not a low-level offence and it should not be tolerated. Everyone has the right to live free from intimidation and harassment.”

Mr Prophet added: “I ask the public to continue to report incidents of ASB. If we don’t know about it, we can’t work to tackle it.”