'WE are winning the war on anti-social behaviour' Chepstow's head of policing has claimed as he revealed figures for anti-social behaviour in the town are down 20 per cent.

Gwent Police Inspector, Jim Walker, made the statement at last week's Lower Wye meeting after revealing new statistics found reports of anti-social behaviour across Monmouthshire "as a whole" were down.

Figures on a year-on-year basis found that reports of anti-social behaviour in Chepstow were down 20 per cent and Caldicot down 41 per cent.

He also said Chepstow had the lowest number of anti-social behaviour incidents in Monmouthshire, although Thornwell had retained the highest number of recorded incidents in Chepstow.

Thornwell Cllr Armand Watts asked Inspector Walker why he believed Thornwell was continuing to see a higher proportion of problems than other areas of Chepstow and what Gwent Police were doing to tackle the 'hotspot'.

Inspector Walker said: "I target my officers and PCSOs in known problem areas and Thornwell has long been a hotspot. The difficulty is there's a difference in young people making a nuisance of themselves and actually breaking the law.

"I have said this many times before, but this is a social problem and not just a police issue. We need a multi-agency approach to tackling the problem."

Cllr Watts agreed adding: "In a lot of ways the police have been expected to become social workers and I believe the local authority and social services need to take a better approach at looking at the families of kids who are, in some cases, making people's lives hell." Inspector Walker added: "A lot of problems result from kids hanging around the streets, they often start drinking and that sometimes leads to them damaging property, cars graffiti etc.

You ask these kids why they do it and their response is often, 'I got bored - there's nothing for us to do here.

"They say they can't even go to a cinema without having to travel to Newport and so on. I remember when I started here years ago we were having meetings about creating activities and places for kids to go and yet there's been no progress."

Cllr Stephanie Dovey disagreed saying: "That's just an excuse for those who can't be bothered getting involved with clubs such as the guides or the scouts. That might not seem cool these days but there are things to do here."

Inspector Walker replied: "Well I'm just telling you what they are telling us."