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Mr Barber visited Bicester to discuss tackling drugs and anti-social behaviour in the town with Sam Holland, town councillor for Bicester east, last week.
In a video posted on social media, Mr Barber spoke about the solutions for tackling these issues.
At the beginning of the video, Mr Holland said: “We all know we’ve got a mild problem in Bicester with drug dealing, particularly cannabis, and anti-social behaviour in the town centre.”
Last week I caught up with @samhollanduk to talk about the work being done to tackle drugs and anti-social behaviour in #Bicester. pic.twitter.com/y6oE0M7VUO
— Matthew Barber (@matthew_barber) September 21, 2024
The Police and Crime Commissioner agreed that it is a problem in “many of our market towns”.
“The solution is about increasing visible policing,” Mr Barber said.
He said the number of neighbourhood police officers in the Thames Valley has doubled with “more to come”.
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“We’ve got a record number of police officers now, 5,120 across the force,” he said.
“In terms of some of the challenges we’ve got around drugs, is making sure we’re trying to disable those drug acts, recognising that there are drug users out there that we need to tackle but also we’ve got that trafficking of drugs.”
With Bicester’s good transport networks, he highlighted the importance of the force working with the British Transport Police to take the drugs out of circulation.
Mr Holland added that they will be “working hard” to ensure Bicester town centre is “free for all to use”.
