A SENIOR police officer has hailed efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour in Darlington after figures showed a 40 per cent drop in complaints in the last six months.

Chief Superintendent Andy Reddick, area commander for South Durham, said he was delighted with the results, which come after a new combined approach to tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB), involving police, PCSOs, council officers and other partners.

Officers have set up a problem-solving approach to help people who make repeated calls and set up a triage system to identify vulnerable people and give them extra support.

Under the new system the Safer Neighbourhood Unit, based in Gladstone Street, has received an average of 15 ASB incident reports a day in the last six months, compared to 25 a day in the previous six months.

Chief Supt Reddick said: “There has been a lot done in Darlington around dealing with ASB. We have set up a restorative justice scheme that sees young people involved in petty crimes work in the community to repay their behaviour and we have also set up a system to identify repeat victims of ASB.

“We had one victim who contacted us more than 200 times over several years, but because there had been gaps between the calls we had not picked up the problem.

“Our combined efforts have led to the 40 per cent drop but now we have to get that through to the public, because the perception of ASB is higher than the reality.”

ASB is broken down into three types - nuisance, which includes noisy neighbours or youths causing a disturbance; personal, where the incident impacts on an individual or group; and environmental, such as littering, grafitti or dog fouling.

The statistics show that nuisance ASB has reduced by 41 per cent in six months, while personal ASB has dropped by 36 per cent and environmental ASB by 38 per cent.

Annette Metcalfe, partnership liaison officer for Durham Police, who co-ordinates work with outside partners, said: “There is a tolerance that comes into play and it’s about what people perceive to be ASB. We need to reinforce the message that not all groups of youths are causing trouble and that someone in a hoodie is not necessarily a bad thing.”