In his latest column for the Globe, campaigning Birkenhead MP Frank Field says householders are now despairing at the authorities' inability to curb anti-social behaviour, and he is calling a 'summit' meeting with the borough's police chief...

WELL done to the Globe. In the two weeks since my previous column, Birkenhead residents have written to me in even larger numbers to report criminal activity and antisocial behaviour near where they live.

They are doubly determined to prevent the toe-rags who behave so appallingly from dragging parts of our town into the gutter.

I have been submitting each of these reports to the police who - again thanks to the Globe - seem to have upped the intensity of their response to each one.

But the regularity of these reports and the sheer horror of the incidents being reported tells me that the authorities’ response now needs to be cranked up another notch.

Most reports of anti-social behaviour are taken up by a unit that sits between the police and Wirral Council.

A main concern among decent, law-abiding residents who have reported anti-social behaviour to this unit is that despite being asked to fill out and then submit incident diaries, either limited or no action follows the submission of those diaries.

In some cases, the diaries are only received after I have taken up their case, as their first enquiry to the unit has not been acknowledged.

Likewise, some residents inform me that they do not receive any form of acknowledgement, let alone a visit from officers, once they have submitted their incident diaries.

Residents inform me also that even after submitting their incident diaries they see no additional enforcement activity in their area, and the anti-social behaviour continues unabated – the thugs act as though they can get away with whatever they want, knowing they will face no consequences.

One such group has regularly been smashing up bus stops and terrorising residents in the North End over the summer.

Decent residents, meanwhile, have been drained by the feeling that there is little, if any point in going through this reporting exercise.

Many of them had, until recently, simply given up reporting things to the unit. This is a hugely concerning development which surely explains, in part, the reduction in the number of incidents reported to the authorities.

What’s more, there does not appear to be any data on how well, or otherwise, the unit is performing.

Nobody knows, for example, how many suspects have been identified, caught and charged for their behaviour, as a result of the incident diaries being handed out.

I am calling a summit with the Area Commander to begin piecing together the evidence on this front, so that a more effective response can be brought into action.

The need for this was recently set out to me by one dismayed resident: "…unfortunately the report the council gave you was complete and utter rubbish, saying they have not really had complaints from the police or from us in regards to problems.

"To be honest we just gave up after that because at that time we were reporting incidents to the police on pretty much a weekly basis, and there was obviously something going a miss with the council.

"So our thoughts were that it will never really be resolved so why waste our time trying."