Villagers have staged talks with police in a bid to stamp out anti-social behaviour.

Residents in Birch say it is time to crack down on troublemakers after a rise in nuisance activity.

More than 30 villagers attended a special meeting with police, council chiefs, MP Bernard Jenkin and local councillors.

Cliff Wookey-Cracknell, a residents' spokesman, said: "There are even motorbikes pulling wheelies in people's front gardens."

Geoff King, the parish council chairman, added: "We are seeing children laying down in the road and playing chicken" with the traffic.

"It's a recipe for disaster. We need advice on how to combat this."

Police sergeant Chris Willis said Birch accounted for just 200 of 50,000 incidents reported to Colchester police in the last 12 months, but admitted: "A couple of months ago I got the feeling things were going wrong here in Birch."

The village has just joined the force's Operation Summertime initiative to boost responses to incidents.

"If people say they have a problem in their street, instead of saying we will try to look at it, we take officers off other duties to deal with it," said Sgt Willis.

Published Tuesday, April 29, 2003

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