The Police and Crime Commissioner has been in Salcombe on one of her regular visits to

come and see how supportive the police are being to some of the local businesses

and to meet Harbour Master, the Mayor, district and town councillors.

She outlined their discussions: “We talked about anti- social behaviour that's happening in the summer, whether that's late at night or in the parks, some of the underage drinking, some drugs, challenges that we face.

“I think fundamentally, the biggest thing we've just talked about is, how can we help Salcombe have more visibility on the streets, whether that's policing or whether that's street marshals or whether that's PCSOs.

“We've got extra money from the government this year with £4.7 million pounds in the neighbourhood policing grant to fund PCSOs, PCs or police staff that replace police officers that may be doing police staff jobs.

‘We're a bit anxious of doing it because it's only one year that we've got this funding at the moment but we’re hoping it will be continued.

“There is an opportunity to look at how we can improve some of our communities that haven't received funding because they're not a high crime area, but there is a public confidence issue that we need to solve.

Alison wanted to praise people who kept their eyes open for problems: “I hear a lot of the patronizing description of what they call ‘the worried well’, but they’re the best people we've got because that's how we keep crime out keeping on top of what's going on in their communities so they don't let that crime and that anti social behaviour leak in. “

I launched the Police and Crime Plan a couple of weeks ago, and we've still got anti-social behavior in there as a priority that I want to see policing tackle.

“I want to see some radical ideas to tackle the violence that we've got domestic and sexual violence, I want some radical solutions.

“We've also got drugs in there but I added alcohol as one of the key drivers for crime.

“We will be looking at what we're doing around evening and nighttime economy and some of the public order offences that happens around that, and in particular,theft.

“Shopkeepers are absolutely fed up to the back teeth.

“They don't report the shoplifting because they feel the police don't care.

“We want to help shopkeepers be confident to report it to the police and for us to really deal with some of those issues that some of our shoplifters have, which is drugs and alcohol.”

Salcombe Mayor Mark Goodey said:”We pointed out that we wanted to keep Salcombe a low-crime area and we were requesting some pre-emptive policing with people visiting the people that may be causing the problems in the summer period.”

Deputy Mayor Jasper Evans said: “We talked about not just the summer but other times when the population grows with visitors there’s antisocial behaviour, under aged drinking and Alison gave some wise words about that and supporting local policing.”