Police have vowed to crack the problem of youth nuisance after a series of incidents in Ongar and North Weald.

Patrols have been stepped up after vandalism and damage in the Chipping Ongar Primary School area of Greensted and the playground at the top of School Green Lane, North Weald.

Details of the blitz, due to be given to Wednesday's Epping Police and Community Consultative Group, come against a background of disappointing figures in the fight against crime which will also be revealed to the meeting.

Three incidents in Ongar have sparked the fresh initiatives.

Trees were damaged, youths, who had apparently been drinking, climbed on to the school roof, a window was smashed and graffiti defaced walls.

In North Weald the play area was damaged and in another incident youths were seen throwing slabs off the bridge over the disused railway line in Kiln Road.

Insp Peter Hesketh, due to report to Wednesday's meeting, said: "We're trying to be more focused on particular incidents; each week we have a planning meeting at which we identify targets for action.

"This is our core business, after all, and we're concentrating on intelligence-led policing. We appeal to anyone with information to contact us because if we don't know about a problem, we can't address it."

Other incidents which have led to focused policing include theft from a building site in Ongar plus stolen vehicle trailers and diesel in North Weald.

Insp Hesketh, of Epping, will tell the meeting that burglaries from houses, vehicle crime and youth nuisance continue to dominate the crime figures.

His report also refers to the problem of motor-cycles on Wednesday nights at the White Bear in Stanford Rivers. Licensee George Scott has taken steps to deal with a minority of bikers who have been causing a nuisance by performing stunts on the A113 outside the pub.

Insp Hesketh says that on the roads, two summer initiatives have targeted speed, especially by motorcyclists, and drink driving.

Mothers have also been discouraged from parking on the hatching outside schools.

The latest statistics, compiled for the last three months, are felt to give a distorted snapshot of the position but reveal that the police are failing to meet the targets they set themselves.

Figures show that the number of dwelling burglaries in the Epping section since April has been 55 compared with the target of 35 while the detection target of 17.7 per cent is, in fact, only 3.6 per cent.

The target for thefts from vehicles has been set at 68 but since April the number of offences has been 112 and the 8.5 per cent detection target is just 2.6 per cent.

Vehicle thefts are 55 compared with the target of 46 and the detection rate is 5.4 per cent compared with 14.5 per cent.

In the area of violent crime, the detection rate is set at 79 per cent. Since April it has, in fact, been 65.2 per cent.

Insp Hesketh said: "My goal for the coming year is to meet these targets and to better them."

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