Operation Thunder relaunches in Cheltenham this summer

The Cheltenham Neighbourhood Policing Team are taking part in Operation Thunder again this summer in a bid to tackle anti-social behaviour in the town.

The operation was initially launched last August (2019) after police received a high volume of calls around anti-social behaviour involving groups of youths.

Operation Thunder aims to increase high visibility patrols in the area, engage with local youths and prevent further harm from occurring whilst positively responding when dealing with any criminal offences.

There was a rise in cases of anti-social behaviour in the town centre at the beginning of last week and officers issued section 35 dispersal notices as well as referring a number of those involved to the Gloucestershire Youth Support Team for intervention work.

Sergeant Steve Benbow said: "We launched Operation Thunder last summer after our call handlers noticed a significant rise in reports of anti-social behaviour related incidents involving groups of teenagers in the town.

"We appreciate that teenagers want to enjoy themselves and have a bit of fun during the summer holidays but we also need to ensure that we can support the town centre community to keep everyone safe from harm and tackling ASB should help us to do this.

"I am hopeful that this relaunch will allow us to achieve the positive results that we saw last year where we took part in a number of positive actions such as putting dispersal orders in place and conducting extra patrols which really helped us get to grips with the issue."