THE fight against antisocial behaviour in Thurrock is being won it is claimed - after latest figures showed a fall of almost 35 per cent in recorded cases.

For the 12 months ending March, there was a 0.8 per cent increase in reports of all crime recorded in Thurrock, an increase from the previous 12 months of 132 crimes with 16,978 reported crimes in total.

However, at Thurrock Council's cleaner, greener and safer overview and scrutiny meeting councillors heard antisocial behaviour reduced by 34.9 per cent over the same time period, which was a decrease of 1,129 reports, with the total number of reports at 2104.

Thurrock District commander, Chief Insp Anthony Atkin from Essex Police urged residents to keep reporting crimes in order for police to best use their resources.

After committee chairman, Cllr Val Morris-Cook asked what councillors could do to help, CI Atkin said: "The biggest ask from me is to actively encourage constituents that report things to yourself in the community, whether that be off road biking, antisocial behaviour or littering, encourage them to report that to police through online reporting. If it's a case of a bike driving up and down a pavement report through 999 because a speeding bike can cause injuries to people."

CI Atkin added: "If we don't get the reports it's quite frustrating. If we don't get reports from the community about emerging problems we won't know them and can't respond. It's very frustrating for the community as well as for us when we go to meetings and we get told "we've reported this" and I go and look at our systems and find that in the Chadwell St Mary case, where a ten-year-old boy was hit by a motorbike on a field, we had one report in six months.

"In Orsett Heath nearby we had 25 reports so from a policing point of view, where I direct my resources is where I see the biggest problem and Orsett Heath is our biggest problem and where we've directed Operation Caesar, our quad bike team to patrol."

Vehicle crime is up across the borough with car thefts rising by 15 per cent but with a 221 per cent increase in detection rate.

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CI Atkin said: "With vehicle crime as a whole we've seen a 16.4 per cent increase in the rolling year up to July.

"It is something we are targeting. Our biggest hotspot for car theft is the car parks at Lakeside, predominantly the multi-storey."