A ‘FURIOUS’ complaint over ‘appallingly poor levels of night-time policing’ in Minehead has been made by West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger to the Avon and Somerset force’s Chief Constable Sarah Crew.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said the resort was being ‘abandoned to drunks and hooligans’ as a result of a decision to switch the local police headquarters to Williton.

And he warned crime levels were only going to increase as a result of a non-existent police presence in the town after dark.

Mr Liddell-Grainger (pictured) is taking up the issue after complaints from town centre residents of night-time fighting, drunkenness, and loud music in Wellington Square - and claims of a belated and ineffectual police response.

The Free Press recently reported how a mass disturbance broke out in Friday Street and Wellington Square in the early hours of Sunday, July 10, and how former town councillor Danielle Prosser was unable to persuade police to attend until it was too late.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said the constabulary had made a major mistake in pulling out of its former sub-divisional headquarters in Minehead.

He accused police of still ‘attempting to use every trick in the book’ to justify the relocation.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said: “Recent events in the town centre at night have clearly demonstrated what a lawless area it has now become.

“I warned for months that to leave a population of 12,000, plus a summer population of several thousand more, with little or no night-time cover was asking for trouble - and trouble is precisely what is resulting.

“I do not care what exercise involving bean counters and man-hour calculations has been used to justify the move to Williton, in the cold light of day it looks like a ridiculous decision and, at the dead of night, a dangerous one.”

He added that “People in Minehead have a right to sleep soundly in their beds undisturbed”.

Mr Liddell-Grainger added: “Even if we are never going to go back to the days of having an inspector, three sergeants, and 25 PCs in Minehead, just having some kind of police presence on the streets at night was always an effective deterrent against crime and disorder.

“Now, there is nothing, and when the police are called not merely do they take an unacceptably long time to arrive, they fob people off with pathetic excuses such as there being no evidence of offences having been committed.

“The fact is, there probably were plenty of offences but the police arrived too late to have any hope of doing anything about them. And because no offences will have been recorded the police will be able to produce figures showing Minehead has a very low crime rate. How convenient.

“People in Minehead have a right to sleep soundly in their beds undisturbed by drunks, vandals, fighting, and intolerably loud music, yet that is now what they are experiencing on an almost nightly basis - all thanks to a totally crass and ill thought-out decision as to how police resources should be redistributed.

“I would invite the chief constable to come and see for herself the chaos that decision has been responsible for - though, there will probably be some excuse advanced as to why that will not be possible.”