West Sussex town's anti-social behaviour issues addressed at special meeting

Arundel mayor Tony Hunt explained the purpose of the meeting, held on February 7 at Arundel Town Hall, was to consider what the community could do about the issue.

He said Arundel Town Council had begun to keep an informal log of the anti-social behaviour that was occurring in the town that had been reported, and this had been shared with Sergeant Danny West from the Neighbourhood Police Team and Christine Holyoake, from the Arun District Council Anti-Social Behaviour team – both of whom were at the meeting.

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Cllr Hunt said residents frequently told him, among other issues: they no longer feel safe walking through Arundel late at night; they do not feel the police are taking this issue seriously; that a relatively small number of young people are responsible for most of the antisocial behaviour – the police and the Arun Anti-Social Behaviour Team know who these families are but are doing nothing about it; and the reason for this anti-social behaviour is that there is no police presence so young people think they can now behave how they like and get away with it.

Sergeant West said he was sympathetic to residents’ issues and said he took over on his current role at the end of last year and resolved to ‘make a difference in the future’.

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He warned, however, that resources were limited and sometimes his team would get pulled onto more serious cases, such as the Littlehampton murder case a few weeks ago.

The mayor said the town council would be taking the following steps:

1. Monthly meetings would be held with Sergeant West, PCSO Abi and Christine Holyoake to discuss progress.

2. Continuing to keep an informal log of incidents that were reported and making sure that these formed part of the monthly agenda for the meeting.

3. Communicating the meeting and the incident log to MP Andrew Griffith

4. Communicating the issues to the Police District Commander and the Police Commissioner – not in any way as a criticism of Sergeant West or local PCSO Abi – but to communicate concerns that no improvement would be possible without more resources.