GANGS of drunken tearaways roaming the streets and spoiling for a fight, acts of vandalism and graffiti, frightened homeowners - these are the new priorities at the top of North-East crime-fighters' agendas.

Barely a week goes by without unruly behaviour and communities seemingly living in fear hitting the headlines.

Anti-social behaviour has become a huge issue, to the extent that a raft of new powers were granted to police, councils and community wardens by hard-hitting legislation at the start of the year.

They now have the ability to seek anti-social behaviour orders, disperse groups causing intimidation or harassment, tackle nuisance neighbours and more.

In Darlington, concerns have been growing for months, so much so that community leaders staged a top-level conference with some big-name backing yesterday.

Darlington Partnership's event at the Dolphin Centre was over-subscribed, a sign of local communities' worries about the problem and their determination to stamp it out.

Many of the town's estates - not just the more deprived Skerne Park and Firthmoor areas, but affluent parts such as Mowden - have reported serious problems, particularly among drunken youngsters.

But delegates heard how the region was leading the way in the fight against anti-social behaviour, and that real progress was being made.

Numbers of community wardens, a scheme started in Sedgefield and extended to other parts of the region, were up. Numbers of police officers were up.

Alex Rhind, of the Home Office, said three of the region's councils - Darlington, Middlesbrough and Stockton - had beacon status for their efforts.

Fifty-five anti-social behaviour orders were in force in the Northumbria Police area.

Sunderland City Council was pioneering a crackdown on "neighbours from hell" in the private rented property sector, and Newcastle City Council tackling its five most disruptive families.

In calling for even more to be done, Darlington MP Alan Milburn urged tolerance and understanding from residents.

"What we must not do is demonise young people - the vast majority are law-abiding citizens. This is a problem for all generations." he said.

Of those frequently causing trouble, he said: "They are the few and we are the many. The message we must get across is that this is not just a job for the police, the council and the Home Office, it is a job for all of us."

Louise Casey, head of the Government's Anti-Social Behaviour Unit, said: "We usually shy away from confrontation, but tackling this involves confrontation and saying to people 'what you are doing is wrong'.

"But it's no good taking action if nobody knows about it. Public services have to feed back to communities what is being done about this.

"I don't care, the Government doesn't care and the public don't care how we tackle anti-social behaviour. They just want it tackled and they want it tackled now."

Mr Milburn called for an action plan to be drawn up for Darlington and its progress reported back to a second conference in a month's time.

"We are all working together with one aim - and that is to make Darlington a safer place," he said.