Hundreds call police over anti-social behaviour in West Lothian shopping centre

Anti-social behaviour by teens in Livingston’s shopping centres has sparked hundreds of calls to police already this year, councillors have heard.

There were 217 calls relating to anti-social behaviour and 159 relating to youth complaints in three months from January to April.

A report to the Livingston South Local Area Committee heard that police activity in the shopping centre had been front and centre of local community officers beat work since last year.

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A local police sergeant said the calls were “an accurate reflection of what was happening.”

Sgt Lee Brodie told the meeting: “Work has continued in Livingston town centre throughout the quarter – this has taken the form of numerous town centre patrols by community and response policing officers.

"Several young people have been either arrested and brought into custody or taken home to their parents and charged, for a variety of disorder/violent offences, particularly by the community policing team.”

Councillors first voiced concerns a year ago that teens were using free bus passes to congregate in Livingston town centre to cause mayhem. It triggered an active response from local community officers working with the shopping centres.

Detailed figures in the police report showed calls to police about anti-social behaviour across the quarter. They showed the lowest being nine in the first week of January to highs of 29 a week in a couple of weeks, with an average of around 16 each week. All youth related calls to police over the period were 20 a week at the high point, but averaging around 12.

Councillor Maria MacAulay said: “ Looking at the stats for Livingston South, is a lot of this made up with what’s happening in Livingston centre?. I was at a community council meeting last night and they were saying ‘oh it's really bad’. I’m just looking for factual information."

Sgt Brodie said: “From our experience there’s no question that Livingston town centre makes up a lot of the anti-social and youth related calls for the Livingston South ward. That’s one of the main reasons why the officers in the ward and myself spend a lot of time there.

“That’s not to say that’s the only place where anti-social behaviour occurs. We certainly have been aware of reports down towards the Scotmid in Bankton. It's those kinds of hubs where you will get anti-social behaviour.”

Sgt Brodie added: “ At the same time I did see some encouragement when I looked through some of the figures because there’s certainly some weeks where Livingston South, in spite of having the town centre, didn’t have the highest number of calls that particular week. It certainly looks like Bathgate, which itself has a busy town centre and night time economy, obviously did take a lot of the calls as well.

“We are continuing to work pro-actively there [in Livingston]. Whilst the calls are higher than a number of other wards, they’re not always the highest . When you consider how big to town centre is it's actually not a huge number of calls at any given time.”

Councillor MacAulay asked: “Do you think people are more readily phoning up now and making complaints now there are issues. They're not so apprehensive. So it’s encouraging to see that action is able to be taken.?”

The sergeant replied: “Yes people are keen to report. We’ve made a point of engaging with the two town centres, giving them advice about reporting about how to and when it’s appropriate to do so, the importance of then following up with us and being able to provide statements, so yes we have encouraged people to report.

“The reports we have do give a true picture. I don’t think it's being either under or over reported. I think this is an accurate reflection of what we are seeing.”

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