Operation Checkpoint aims to clean up town centre (From Warrington Guardian)

Operation Checkpoint aims to clean up town centre

11:10am Thursday 14th August 2008

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POLICE armed with metal detectors and sniffer dogs set up checkpoints around the town centre on Saturday to search drinkers for weapons and drugs.

Operation Checkpoint, a joint initiative with police and licensees, was carried out in a bid to make people feel safer in the town centre, which has the highest concentration of bars in the north west.

While no weapons were seized, a total of 10 arrests were made during the course of the night - four for possession of Class A drugs, one for drunk and disorderly behaviour, one for breaching a section 27 notice to leave the town centre, two for assault and two for affray.

Inspector Richard Reeves, of the Town Centre Neighbourhood Policing Unitheaded up the operation and was keen to stress it was not a result of a problem with weapon crime but rather as part of an on-going strategy to improve standards in the town centre.

He said: “I thought the operation went really well and the arrests around the checkpoints generated a safer night in the town.

“Our presence created a positive impact on people’s behaviour – usually we have more arrests later in the evening.

“And while the number of arrests is what we would expect for a busy Saturday night, the difference was that we were arresting people proactively rather than reacting to people street fighting, for example.”

Since the Town Centre NPU was created in April, there has been a significant improvement in combating anti-social behaviour with officers, licensees and door staff working in partnership to crackdown on alcohol-related problems.

Insp Reeves added: “The checkpoints were the most busy from 10pm to 12am and the vast majority of people were coming into the town sober, which I think smashes a common perception that people are getting drunk on cheap supermarket booze or are out in Stockton Heath first.

“Most people in the queues were joyful and while we had a few negative comments, once we explained we were working with PubWatch to make people feel safer they were more positive.”

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