CONSTABLE Vince Treagus is a beat copper who knows his patch in the heart of Worcester like the back of his hand.

He cuts a reassuring figure on a Saturday night patrolling the city centre, hands tucked up under his stab vest, eyes sweeping the evening’s boisterous revellers and queuing clubbers.

A group of teenage lads walk up to him and share banter on first name terms.

After they’ve wandered off, without missing a beat he tells me: “They’re part of a young family living up on Wyld’s Lane, you see them about.”

PC Treagus has been looking after the streets of Worcester in one area or another since he first donned the uniform in the 1970s.

He now heads the Local Policing Team (LPT) on the ground in the Cathedral beat, covering the city centre, Britannia Square and Diglis – including the new flagship basin development.

It is here the LPT has faced a rise in anti-social behaviour, mainly from bored youngsters, after tenants moved in to a housing association block last summer.

Your Worcester News reported earlier this year how city councillor Allah Ditta had called on officers to tackle the problem and “take policing up a notch.”

PC Treagus said: “If there’s something happening in Diglis I’ll send my community support officers (CSOs) and go and have a look around myself.

“But I can still walk up a street eight or nine times in a week and get people saying ‘we don’t see many of you round here’”

Earlier in the year your Worcester News reported business owners in the area were fed up with a spate of crime including vandalism, breakins, graffiti and groups of youths roaming the streets at night.

Many of the incidents were directly linked to tenants who had moved to a recently completed housing block which went up during the flagship redevelopment of the Diglis basin.

Orbit Heart of England housing association, then South Warwickshire housing association, took control of the completed block in July 2007 to provide more residential social housing in the city.

“When South Warwickshire came in they had no knowledge of Worcester. The Worcester City Council supplied them with the names to take off the housing lists,”

explained PC Treagus.

To tackle the growing problem the police, city council and Orbit got together and agreed on a residents’ survey to get to identify the causes.

Fay Shanahan, Orbit’s regional housing service manager, said: “That research identified a lack of local facilities especially for the young people.

“Poor local transport restricted access to existing facilities elsewhere in the city.”

Off the back of the survey, good neighbour agreements with residents were drawn up making “courteous and considerate behaviour” a factor in continued tenancy.

PC Treagus explained: “They are signed up to a short six month lease and if they prove they can live within the agreement’s terms, they can sign up for a longer lease.”

CCTV cameras were also fitted to the block in August and through further work with city council officers a local lettings strategy has been drawn up where all the agencies, including police, have a say in who gets a tenancy. Monthly meetings are continuing.

Mrs Shanahan explained: “It’s been a success and the estate demographic is now more balanced in terms of age and family composition.”

Bored youngsters were at the centre of many of the anti-social incidents, riding mini motos on the nearby sand dunes, vandalism, graffiti and break-ins at nearby businesses.

To tackle the issue, Orbit is trying to set up a minibus to and from the Midland Road Community Centre where football training sessions and other social activities are based.

The housing association also recently held a community fun day in the housing block’s car park aimed at getting people to meet their neighbours.

PC Treagus explained: “We got kids up to about the age of 15 or 16 helping re-plant the gardens and just getting them to take a bit of responsibility.

“We were showing a presence to the kids, and it seems to have worked.

“We’ve had no reports of the gardens being vandalised.”

Getting to know the local youngsters is also one of the best ways officers are working to reduce anti-social behaviour, according to PC Treagus.

“Quite often, somebody will ring us up with an incident and give us a description,” he said.

“If you know them, you know who you need to go and talk to.”

The experienced constable, with 36 years of policing under his belt, knows better than to declare the battle won but he is sure the measures are having an impact.

“You cannot give a 100 per cent guarantee.

“It only takes one person to do something with the neighbour disputes we’ve had at the block,” he said.

“I think we’ve offered reassurance, it’s early days yet but we’re getting there.”

One business manager, who did not wish to be named, said there had been no repeat break-ins of vandalism at their site since the new measures came into force in August.

● People with concerns or queries can get in touch with Cathedral LPT by e-mailing cathedral.lpt@ westmercia.pnn.police.uk, using the team’s police post boxes at the Guildhall, Midland Road Community Centre and the city library in Foregate Street, or by calling 08457 444888.