Police have given the results of an initiative over the last three months aimed at tackling yobbish behaviour in Stirling city centre.
A ‘dispersal zone’ was set up and it gave officers extra powers to order people causing trouble to leave the area for 24 hours or face arrest.
An order setting up the zone came into force on October 3 and concluded on January 3.
It covered a part of the city centre bounded by Goosecroft Road to the east, Stirling Castle Esplanade to the north, Dumbarton Road to the west and Upper Craigs to the south.
At last Thursday’s meeting of Mercat Cross and City Centre Community Council community police officer, Constable Caroline McColl, said during the time the order was in place 89 people were ‘dispersed’.
Around 10 were later arrested for failing to abide by the order and will be reported to the procurator fiscal. None of the cases had yet gone to court.
Constable McColl said: “The order was a great tool for us. Work is now underway to see if antisocial behaviour orders can be applied to the most prolific offenders.”
Giving a rundown on crime in the city centre and Top of the Town, since November 8, she said there had been no reported road collisions but nine hit-and-run incidents, most of them in car parks .
Police also recorded during that period 22 breach of the peace incidents, most of a minor nature and all detected with persons charged. Some involved shouting, swearing and acting aggressively and nine were for urinating in the street or drinking in a public place.
Of the 12 reports of vandalism during that period, six were detected and inquiries are continuing into the remainder.
Police also recorded 26 drug-related crimes, 25 assaults – all but four detected – and 43 crimes of dishonesty, mostly shoplifting. Thirty of the crimes of dishonesty were detected.
Constable McColl and her colleague, Constable Dale Cowan, also told community councillors a move by police to hold ‘surgeries’ in Riverside and the Top of the Town had so far not proved popular. “It was worth doing and we will look to do it again but we were not inundated with queries,” added Constable McColl.
Constable Cowan said: “We held a surgery in a room in the Tolbooth and were here for two hours and no-one turned up.”
