Councillors identified areas of crime which they believe affect Monmouth residents the most at a meeting with police Monday night (14th September).

Inspector Huw Jones spoke at Monday’s town council meeting about the policing policy for Monmouth and gave details of crime statistics and police resources he had available to him.

He broke down the crime statistics for the Monmouth area for the months of July and August, which totalled 105 crimes; including violence and injury, public and domestic disorder; criminal damage and arson, and shoplifting.

He informed councillors that one arrest had been made following non-dwelling burglaries in Monmouth, Usk and Abergavenny, the offender already had a Community Order placed on them and was on remand.

A female in her 20s has had an anti-social behaviour order placed on her following a number of incidents, and a ’prolific offender’ has been identified as being involved in theft by shoplifting and is currently serving a term of imprisonment.

It was when the chairman asked for questions from the floor that councillors began to question the priorities of policing in the town.

Cllr Terry Christopher wanted an interpretation of antisocial behaviour as he believed the three main areas of concern for Monmouth were litter, dog fouling and illegal car parking. He was taken aback when Inspector Thomas informed them that those areas did not fall under the umbrella of anti-social behaviour, but were part of the ‘Your Voice’ priorities; “ Litter and dog fouling are not a police matter” he said.

Cllr Christopher hit back by saying that it is not down to the local authority as their environment officers had been training PCSOs on how to deal with dog fouling.

Cllr Bob Hayward said that with regard to illegal parking, the police have a policy of moving offenders rather than booking them; “Townspeople feel it is the same drivers that re-offend because there is no enforcement, there should be warfare on repeat offenders who do it because they know they can get away with it.”

Inspector Jones said that he “totally understood that” but he had limited resources and reiterated that parking was a Your Voice priority. “Parking is 100 per cent a police issue” he agreed but combating littering was a Monmouthshire County Council and police partnership venture.

Cllr Graham Pritchard said that “action is required, not talking” as six months ago, councillors had identified a number of parking hotspots where car were parked where they were not supposed to, he would like to know how many tickets had been issued recently.

Cllr Anthea Dewhurst spoke and said that there was signing and yellow lines around the old Monnow Bridge, and thought some formal friendly warnings would have a huge affect: “We need the police to act.”

Inspector Jones did point out that he held an open surgery in the cafe at Waitrose on 27th of August but nobody turned up. He was reminded by Cllr Christopher that the day he had chosen was also Monmouthshire Show day, so most people would have been engaged elsewhere.

It was agreed that councillors would like to invite Inspector Jones to other town council meetings and agreed that it would be useful for the Community Affairs Committee to have a similar liaison at their meetings.