SENIOR police and fire officers have held the first in a series of meetings to tackle the town's serious problem with deliberate car fires, writes Julian Seva.

Chief Insp Dave Willetts and Station Officer Richard Lawrence met recently in a bid to find a solution to what is becoming a dangerous drain on the fire service's availability for other more serious incidents.

Both will now meet on a monthly basis and Chf Insp Willetts said he eventually hopes to deduce patterns and trends which will help the force tackle the issue.

He said: "What we want to do initially is ensure we get recognition of the problem, and make sure both agencies have a clear picture of the issues involved and look to target resources.

"We need to sit down because if, for instance, there is a series of car fires we don't know about, we can't do anything about them."

Chf Insp Willetts said most of the cars abandoned and torched are stolen, predominantly by youths under the age of 21.

In the Redditch and Bromsgrove police division there are 4.5 car crimes per thousand of the population.

But a recent Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade report showed Redditch has the busiest fire crews in the brigade mostly due to car fires.

Station Officer Lawrence said: "We will be meeting with a view to tackling this scourge and set out a strategy of tackling it.

"We need to reduce the amount of time we are dealing with these arson calls."