Police chief insists plans are in place to tackle drug dealing in Leamington

The matter was raised at this week’s meeting of Warwick District Council’s overview and scrutiny committee, a panel of councillors who run the rule over the work of the authority and connected public services to make recommendations and flag issues.

An annual performance update from the South Warwickshire Community Safety Partnership, a body that is responsible for work on reducing crime, disorder, substance misuse and reoffending, prompted a query on the ever-moving problem of pedalling illegal drugs.

Councillor Dan Russell (Lib Dem, Leamington Lillington) asked: “A lot of the things that get reported to me are around drugs, drug dealing, particularly away from the centre of Leamington in the suburbs.

“It does feel a bit like whack-a-mole.

"You hit in one way and it just pops up somewhere else.

"I don’t know what is being done when I report it, I know it goes to safer neighbourhoods, how is that handled away from the centre and CCTV, how is that operation managed?”

Chief Insp Chishty replied “When information is reported we make an assessment, we will make an assessment on the risk.

“We have covert teams that operate in south Warwickshire with a strong focus on that kind of criminality.

“If you are getting information of that nature, it can either come through the Safer Neighbourhoods Team (SNT) – hopefully people have that access to the team through mobile phones or an email address – or if it is happening there and then they can call 101 or 999.

"Dependent on what else is going on we can respond.

“Ultimately, we make an assessment that helps us to understand whether it is an isolated event or wider, or whether it is part of an organised crime network.

"That is where the work in the background plays a significant role.

“Clearly, sometimes we are not responding immediately because there is other work, and without compromising some of those tactics, that goes into a space.

“That is perhaps frustrating for those people reporting it but my advice would be to always link in to your local Safer Neighbourhoods Team who are always happy to have a conversation, not compromising what we are doing while also giving our communities confidence that we are listening and doing something about the issues being reported."

Cllr Russell replied: “That is important for us to know.

"Often, people report these things and are quite frustrated that they don’t necessarily receive an outcome.

“If we are able to explain that it is a part of the process and that we are reliant on intelligence and people reporting it, that they should not feel that nothing is happening when they don’t get comeback, these things are going on, being taken into consideration and that it is being worked on, it is important for us to be able to feed that back to our residents.”