Multi-faceted approach to policing sees 14% decrease in anti-social behaviour in Newark and Sherwood

A mixture of targeted patrols, a town centre hub, and redirection for young people has helped to drive down anti-social behaviour.

Newark and Sherwood has seen a 14% drop in anti-social behaviour from August 2023 to July 2024 compared with the previous 12 months. In Newark itself there has been an 18% drop in the same period.

Inspector Charlotte Ellam, Newark and Sherwood’s District Commander, believes it is a collective effort which has led to the significant drop in Newark and the wider district.

This summer marked a second for the neighbourhood policing team with the dedicated Operation Renegade anti-social behaviour car and the town centre hub, as well as having increased hot-spot patrols in Newark’s town centre and Magnus and Devon ward thanks to Home Office funding.

Inspector Ellam said: “Anti-social behaviour is always one of our priorities, it’s a significant community concern for Newark.

“We have seen, and continue to see, a decline in anti-social behaviour.”

Introduced last year, in early July, the Op Renegade car is a double-crewed rapid-response vehicle which is deployed during the summer — when young people are out of school looking for things to do, and the warmer weather means more people are out and about later in the day — to respond specifically to reports of anti-social behaviour.

In just one shift, in the evening of Friday, August 23, PC Ryan Flaherty and PCSO Jamie Evans attended two blue-light call-outs, one to reports of people on the disused council depot site off Great North Road, and another for a report of an air rifle being fired from a property on Yorke Drive, as well as responding to a report of quad and off-road bikes being ridden on land near Kelham — which allowed the officers to gather intelligence, including photos of the offenders provided when they met with the member of the public who reported it, as well as marking it as a potential area for the police’s own off-road bike team to attend if it becomes a problem area for the behaviour.

In between specific call-outs, the car is used to patrol areas across the town — including Middlebeck, around Balderton Lake, Hawtonville and the town centre — and officers also checked in with multiple shops and hotspot areas where there have been issues of anti-social behaviour such as Hawtonville’s Co-op, Odeon and One Stop at Fernwood.

It also led to a as a potential burglary risk being averted when PC Flaherty spotted and alerted the homeowners to a garage door which had accidentally been left open with builders’ tools inside while driving through Fernwood.

A major success of the evening’s patrol was when PC Flaherty spotted a group of boys on the newly-renovated Sherwood Avenue Park after it was closed.

The officers pulled over to speak with the group as they attempted to leave the park, and engaged with them — offering suggestions to return when it was open and to begin to head home as it was late, as well as noting down their names.

PC Flaherty said: “We choose to interact with them so they stay on side, you can just talk to them and create a relationship.

“Then when I asked them to move on they did. They’re not necessarily going out to cause anti-social behaviour, they’re just playing, but you just don’t know what they’d do.

“It would only take one of them to start pulling on the zip line for them to think its a bit of fun and join in — and then new park equipment would be damaged.

“It is hard to measure the success of this kind of policing. You don’t really know what would have happened, we could have prevented incidents just by driving around.”

Similarly, a visit to Farndon bridge was also an opportunity for engagement and advice — although it was quiet during the shift — as, while the popular pastime of jumping from the structure into the River Trent is not illegal, it often attracts rowdy behaviour which is unpleasant for others in the area as well as posing a serious risk of injury to those jumping in.

“Anti-social behaviour goes with it, swearing and noise. They’ve had some issues out here,” PC Flaherty added.

“I think people just like seeing us, even if nothing is happening. Having a police presence reassures them.”

The officers also made time to stop and say hello to other young people they know while driving around the area.

This kind of engagement is key in the plan to tackle anti-social behaviour by young people, which has a focus on supporting them to make better choices and prevent them from progressing to higher-level crimes.

The area has an anti-social behaviour panel, a collaborative initiative with Newark and Sherwood District Council, the police and other community safety partners, which works to redirect young offenders, and the neighbourhood team has also lead on Operation Swift at nearby Hill Holt Wood, which aims to rehabilitate young people involved in anti-social behaviour and wildlife crime through re-education and raising awareness of the effects the behaviour has on other people and places.

Inspector Ellam added: “Officers know who the young people are and they can refer them to the panel.

“It’s not about criminalising them, it’s about intervention if we see a person straying into anti-social behaviour.

“The panel can collectively ask, what’s happening with this young person and what support can we put in place?”

Meanwhile, the town centre hub allows neighbourhood officers to work and deploy from the marketplace and gives a clear view across the area, and the Home Office Hotspot Response-funded uniformed hotspot patrols in the town centre and Magnus and Devon ward aim to make officers more visible to help combat anti-social behaviour.

The chosen areas were identified by police and partners as having issues of youth related anti-social behaviour, and follow academic studies from the College of Policing which showed that frequent and short patrols are most effective at reducing crime.

Inspector Ellam added: “The patrol hotspots can be quite fluid, whether there’s a particular house or group of people causing issues.

“The public always want to see more officers out and about, and I’d like to give them more, but I have to be realistic with resources and demands.”

Current challenges for the three neighbourhood policing teams, made up of 35 officers across the district, include nuisance vehicles — whether car meets, or anti-socially ridden off-road bikes, e-bikes and scooters — as well as ‘street level anti-social behaviour’ where people are drinking, smoking cannabis or “generally behaving in a way that makes makes other people using spaces feel intimidated” as well as youth-related anti-social behaviour.

The police have ‘limited tactics’ to tackle the issue of e-bikes and scooters, but officers follow up CCTV and aim to find addresses so the items can be seized.

“If we do see people riding them they will be challenged,” the Inspector added.

“[Regarding car meets,] while we will respond in the immediate term we also try and do other work to stop them entirely, otherwise we just see that they move on to another area.”

The safer streets projects — of which Safer Streets Five is ongoing in Balderton North — have also delivered environmental changes which have helped deter offenders in collaboration with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.

This has already seen security measures such as gating, lighting and CCTV cameras funded, and the fifth phase planned additional CCTV, new street lighting, and outreach activities for young people.

Reporting anti-social behaviour also remains key to seeing improvement.

While calls won’t always prompt an immediate blue-light response, they will be logged as intelligence and are used by Inspector Ellam to inform how she allocates officers on her teams to problem areas.

Reports should be made to Nottinghamshire Police on 101, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

In an emergency, or if an incident is in progress, call 999.

Non-criminal anti-social behaviour — such as noise issues, fly-tipping, burning rubbish, and graffiti — should be reported to Newark and Sherwood District Council using the online form on the council’s website.

If issues reported to the council become criminal matters, they will be passed on to the police.