Biddulph police shed some light on their efforts to crack down on local issues including antisocial behaviour, antisocial vehicle use and drugs in a recent livestream.

Sgt Jamie Machin sat down with local PCSO Josh and Antony Capostagno, manager of Biddulph Youth and Community Zone, for a recent live video chat that was streamed online.

Sgt Machin discussed some of the issues police were currently focusing on in Biddulph, which included antisocial behaviour and vehicle use.

He said: "An issue that has been brought to our attention at the minute has been about youths in the town centre, and vehicles in car parks in the town centre and the surrounding streets.

"We have things called Acceptable Behaviour Contracts that we can put on youths, where we can give them things they need to do so they can understand how to stay out of trouble.

"We start low level so we can educate rather than criminalise at first. It has worked quite well most of the time, but if someone isn't learning from their behaviour we go down the prosecution route."

Nub News reported recently how Sainsbury's carpark on Wharf Road is now subject to Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 which means that any vehicle being used in a careless or anti-social manner can be seized immediately by an officer without any further warning.

Also recently we reported how police issued warnings to the owners of two vehicles in Biddulph after they were seen "driving in an antisocial manner".

And in Brown Edge, police issued Acceptable Behaviour Contracts to two males after damage was caused to a park.

PCSO Josh explained more about Section 59 orders.

He said: "With vehicles in local car parks, we have issued Section 59 orders that last for 12 months on the vehicle and the owner.

"They get a warning for the first time, and after that they can have their vehicle seized an unlimited number of times over the 12 months, which will incur a cost to them."

Antony Capostagno discussed what The Zone was doing to prevent antisocial behaviour.

He said: "At the Zone we run positive youth activities to engage young people and stop them getting involved in antisocial behaviour.

"We get over 100 people in our youth clubs and run a lot of activities in the school holidays, which hopefully has an impact on reducing antisocial behaviour."

Sgt Machin also discussed how police aim to tackle drugs in Biddulph, saying: "Another issue we look at all the time is around drugs and issues around that.

"Whenever we get information about that we take positive actions with warrants and suchlike. We do a lot of background stuff all the time to gather evidence, but its very important that the public give us information so we can take action.

"We do county lines work and stop and searches. We do prosecution and closure orders, working with housing associations if there are issues with houses and drugs."

Nub News reported how tenants at a Biddulph property that had "been an issue" for the local area were kicked out after police secured a possession order.

The full livestream can be watched here.