The number of drug related stop and searches undertaken by police in Bury has rocketed in the past year. Figures published by Bury Council this week show that 254 such searches took place in the borough from April to June this year, up from just 65 searches in thethree month period from July to September, 2021.
A report has been sent to councillors six months after the development of a new Community Safety Partnership (CSP) plan for Bury which also identified a spate of knife robberies in the town centre earlier this year. The plan’s six priorities are to reducing drug related offending, to support victims and tackle causes of domestic abuse, strengthen community cohesion, create and maintain safe spaces, tackle anti-social behaviour and reducing re offending.
Weekly neighbourhood priority setting meetings now take place between GMP neighbourhood teams and the council’s community safety manager to shape responses to emerging crime trends. The figures show that the number of crimes recorded in the borough linked to drugs was 65 in the most recent quarter, which is showing an upward trend.
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There were 321 offences linked to alcohol between April to June this year, down from 367 in the three month period from July to September 2021. The report gave details on a police operation earlier this summer to tackle drugs related crime.
It said: “During May 2022, a day of action was led by GMP in Bury and the wider community safety partnership, named Operation Avro. A particular focus of Avro was on tackling drug-related offending.
“Through the operation approximately £650,000 of class A and B drugs were seized and taken off the streets of the borough and more than 2,800 illegal
cigarettes. This has been part of a concerted effort to tackle drug related harm and explains the increase both the number of drug related stop searches and crimes linked to drugs alongside wider policing operations tackling serious organised crime.”
The number of hate crimes recorded in the borough has seen a downward trend over the past year with 159 such cases being recorded in the most recent quarter compared to 221 in the same period in 2021. The report said that April to June this year saw a relative upturn in anti-social behaviour and criminal activity in Bury town centre, through a number of linked crimes including a spate of knife robberies.
The report, said: “These primarily involved incidents on The Rock between the Parish Church and Barclays Bank. There was not a particular single root cause of this and largely relates to it being a high footfall area, particularly for people to congregate after school or college.”
In response to officers increased foot patrols and used dispersal orders and stop and search where there was suspicion of people possessing knives. Officers were shown CCTV footage of previous incidents in the area to help identify and arrest offenders.
The report said that in June and early July there was a concentration of burglaries in the borough driven by lock-snapping. To tackle this police increased foot patrols issued leaflets on the importance of property security.
Several officers has had their shifts diverted to run 6pm-4am, including the use of plain clothes officers at these times to address the upward rend in such burglaries.
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