THE police and the local authority have joined forces to stamp out vandalism and anti-social behaviour in the area of a new £11m visitor attraction.

Shildon Police and Sedgefield Borough Council have launched an operation to clean up New Shildon in the coming weeks.

The move comes after pleas made by people living in the Bouch Street, Adamson Street and the All Saints area who say they are sick of looking at smashed and boarded up windows and general anti-social behaviour.

The streets, which are close to Locomotion: National Railway Museum, used to be a desirable place to live but residents say the area has declined in recent years.

Sgt Steve Ball, of Shildon Police, said that he had increased the presence of police officers in the New Shildon area and Sedgefield Borough Council has already started cleaning up the back streets which had been strewn with rubbish.

Sgt Ball said: "This is a joint operation with us and the council and the residents and the aim is to improve the quality of life and environment generally for the people of New Shildon.

"If an area looks littered, broken and damaged it makes it look unsafe and we need to get past that and make it the type of place to live that it used to be.

"A lot of this is down to a minority of irresponsible residents and their visitors.

"I think a lot of the residents are now starting to realise that we are taking the problem seriously and are starting to call us more. We would encourage those calls to continue.''

Glyn Hall, Director of Neighbourhood Services, said "We are bringing together our Neighbourhood Wardens, Street Scene operatives and the police to tackle jointly the problems that exist in the area.

"We intend to use a mix of short term initiatives targeting anti-social residents.

"Long term, we will be working with private landlords to support them in dealing with the small minority of problem private sector tenants.

"We also look forward to the opportunities in the Governments new Housing Bill to explore the licensing of private landlords."