A CLAMPDOWN on crime in a part of Worcester has been described as a success.

Police spent a week in Warndon to spread a message that crime and anti-social behaviour would not be tolerated and within two days seized heroin with a street value of £500, cannabis, a large quantity of cash and property believed to have been stolen from cars in the area.

The initiative – from Monday, October 13, to Friday, October 17 – coincided with the Home Office’s Not In My Neighbourhood Week, which aimed to raise public awareness of local efforts to tackle crime.

Eight organisations including Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service and Job Centre Plus were involved.

Worcester Community Housing helped local policing teams hand out 400 free packs of Smartwater – a liquid used to mark household property making it easy to trace if stolen – to residents and to schools.

Teams also visited Warndon’s pubs, led an environmental clean up, checked smoke alarms and demonstrated how the fire service rescue people from smoke filled houses.

Youth Engagement Teams met younger residents, and staff from the Job Centre were on hand with their Employment Bus to give careers advice.

PC John McLaren said: “Hopefully by helping residents to protect their homes, as well as learn more about the various agencies that are out there to offer advice, the community can further work together for the benefit of everyone and send a clear message that criminals will not be tolerated.”

West Mercia’s Sergeant Geoff Murphy, responsible for tackling anti-social behaviour across south Worcestershire, backed Not In My Neighbourhood Week.

“Local people can go a long way in helping to make their communities safer and happier by working with the police and other agencies to make it clear that anti-social behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” he said.

Sgt Murphy, who heads a team of six officers, has a unique way of dealing with youth anti-social behaviour that involves sending a letter to the parents or guardians, meeting with the youth and putting together an acceptable behaviour contract, which encourages the young person to stay on the right side of the law.

It has proved so popular, the south Worcestershire team is being used as a model for the rest of the force area.

“An anti-social behaviour order is a preventative order,” said Sgt Murphy. “The police, and those affected by the behaviour, just want it to stop, hence the diversionary process even before an order. This works very well.”

About 85 per cent of those who receive letters do not come before the police again.