A COUNCILLOR has defended Skerne Park after police announced a crime crackdown in the area.

Earlier this week, the Darlington Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership announced a week-long campaign on the estate, to begin on August 20.

Between April last year and April this year, there were 696 cases of nuisance behaviour in Park East ward, dominated by the estate, and 151 cases of "vehicle-related nuisance".

But Councillor Peter Freitag insists the statistics are misleading.

He said: "I think this is a police public relations exercise that has possibly picked the wrong target."

"I meet residents and they all think crime has gone down. I scour the papers for where the break-ins are, and where the crime is, and I keep seeing, for example, the Denes, and Central ward, but only very occasionally round here.

"I have been in this game for 40 years and Skerne Park gets picked on, not always rightly. It's useful for the police to have a crackdown everywhere, but I'm not happy with Park East being singled out."

"I'm uneasy about it, and so are the people I speak to."

The Park East action week will include events for youngsters, as well as extra police patrols, DVLA checks, and targeting of off-licenses suspected of selling alcohol to children.

In the first action week, held in Central ward in May, 105 litres of alcohol were seized, and there were 111 DVLA prosecutions.