EXTRA effort has been promised to tackle a growing trend of petty crime and anti-social behaviour in Weymouth town centre.

Gangs of teenage youngsters are said to be terrorising others, often leaving a trail of vandalism in their wake.

Older people are also causing problems with drunkenness, begging, drugs and other crimes.

But despite agreeing a cash injection of £110,000 to uniformed council patrols over two years some Weymouth and Portland borough councillors say the action is too late.

There was also criticism at today's meeting at Dorset County Council’s decision to cut back on its youth budget.

Cllr Gill Taylor said that while she didn't condone the anti-social behaviour she said that if young people had nothing constructive to do they were likely to run wild:  “Two years ago I put in a motion to support our youth and it got thrown out by this council…we’re now hitting the youth with a stick; we’re happy to push them out of the town centre…unless we support these kids all we’ll do is force them out of the town and they’ll go back to the Marsh.”

Borough councillors at the Management Committee agreed to fund two patrols of two officers each, one working 10am until 6pm and the other from 6pm until 2am.

Subject to police agreement they will have the power to seize alcohol in some areas, issue fixed penalty notices for begging and other offences and enforce the rough sleeper protocol.

The pilot scheme will run for two years with some funding and support from other agencies.

But one of the groups already working on the streets at night, the Street Pastors, say they are concerned that uniformed officers may aggravate situations.

Cllr Kate Wheller, who works with the Pastors, said despite the worries she believed that alcohol-related incidents had declined.

Council leader Cllr Jeff Cant admitted that there had been times when he was concerned about walking around the town: “In five years I have lived in the town centre there has been a sense of deterioration when walking around late at night. We have now risen to the levels of Boscombe for police focus.”

He said talks with the Police and Crime Commissioner had met with a promise of additional resources and he hoped to find an additional £50,000 of council money for targeted work to help reduce tensions on the streets.

“If we can significantly reduce low level aggression it will stop it escalating and help us and help the police.

“I certainly take this seriously and we need to get to grips with this before we get into the season.”

He said the county council decision to cut youth service funding had a “disastrous effect on where young people can go,” but said he understood why the budget savings had to be made in the face of cuts in Government grants to local councils.

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