Members of Frodsham Town Council have met with a representative of Cheshire Police to discuss problems relating to antisocial behaviour at the Council-owned Memorial Field car park.

On 26 April 2021, Cllrs Judith Critchley and Caroline Ashton, Town Clerk Jo O'Donoghue, two members of the public and Designing Out Crimes Officer, Colin Marples, visited the site following repeated reports of vehicles gathering there, dropping litter, playing loud music and taking drugs.

Mr Marples suggested that the installation of CCTV with clear signage and lighting may dissuade people from partaking in antisocial behaviour, while also helping the police to identify the perpetrators of any crimes committed.

In a report relating to the car park, Mr Marples commented: "In an ideal world you would have monitored, local authority CCTV in operation here, but I do not think it would be realistic and [Frodsham Town Council] may have to install its own."

At Monday's Council meeting, Cllr Bernie Wade took issue with this, saying: "We're setting a precedent here for CCTV on Council land. If one of our parks started having antisocial behaviour, would we then say that we need CCTV on that park as well?

"For me, this has got to be policed. They're committing a crime, breaking the law, and it shouldn't be down to us to police them.

"I don't think it should be down to Frodsham Town Council to be spending money on CCTV cameras when the police are already being paid to sort out antisocial behaviour and drug dealing."

Cllr Phil Griffiths added that the introduction of CCTV cameras at the site could involve "an outlay of £5,000, maybe more, and people will soon work out whether they're monitored or not."

In his report, Mr Marples also recommended the drafting of "a long term plan to formalise and introduce a boundary to the car park which can be secured.

"Rural watch signage has been given to be displayed in areas which lead to or are problem areas. Having these signs highly visible will help to demonstrate that there is a coordinated crime prevention scheme in this area and may well just plant a seed of doubt in the mind of a would be offender.

"The use of a different colour of tarmac which distinguishes from the public highway would help to introduce a psychological boundary for people using the car park and make the car park look and feel more private/community owned."

Cllr Griffiths disagreed with this idea, arguing that "the people who are doing this sort of thing really don't give a monkey's what the colour [of the tarmac] is, and I think that would be a waste of public money."

Mr Marples continued: "Railings could be incorporated with lockable gates which are shut at an agreed time and which are displayed within the car park.

"Other solutions could be the use of a knee rail, bollards, hooped barriers or heavy boulders (must be too heavy to lift) on the grassed area between either end of the entrance and exit to the car park with a lockable swing gate parking barrier on both ends."

Cllr Griffiths supported these suggestions, saying: "The idea that would work is to close off the area every evening and make sure that they cannot get across the grass by putting big boulders in.

"That would be of minimum cost. The only problem is that one of the people who is affected by this [issue] indicated that they would be prepared to [close off the car park] for now but, if they sold their property, would the people who move in be prepared to take on that responsibility?"

While there is already a Council working group tasked with developing the path leading to Frodsham War Memorial itself, Councillors agreed that a new group should be formed to address issues with antisocial behaviour at the Memorial Field car park.

Chaired by Cllr Ashton, this group will also include Cllr Pauline Lowrie and Cllr Helen Hayes, with assistance from Cllrs Griffiths and Wade as representatives from the Memorial Path Working Group.

During Monday's meeting, Cllr Ryan McKeown also suggested that, while long-term solutions to antisocial behaviour at the car park are being explored, residents should continue to report any incidents to the police.

"We need a [high] volume of calls to 101," he said. "If there are only one or two calls going in every now and then, the police will not allocate any resources to it. They're not going to take resources away from, say, antisocial behaviour on Saltworks if that is attracting 50 calls and this only two.

"Maybe as councillors, we all need to log it on the web form as well."

Frodsham Police have also said that they will endeavour to make their presence felt at the site, so as to deter criminal activity.