Travelling criminals targeted in South Shropshire

Travelling criminals have been targeted in a day of action in South Shropshire.

On Thursday, officers from South Shropshire's Safer Neighbourhood Team, supported by the local policing priority team (LPPT) for Shropshire and Telford, joined forces with the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) to stop check vehicles in Craven Arms.

The team set up in the BT Exchange car park and throughout the day carried out more than 30 vehicle checks. Along with checking the vehicles were roadworthy and had a valid MOT, checks were made to make sure drivers were licensed and insured to drive.

One vehicle was seized for no insurance with a number of tickets and prohibitions issued to drivers by both police and DVSA.

The activity is part of West Mercia Police's Protect campaign - targeting serious and organised crime.

Safer Neighbourhood Inspector for South Shropshire, Nikki Roberts, has recently taken up her role leading the Safer Neighbourhood Team. She said: "The local safer neighbourhood team is determined to target local and travelling criminality in the area and take action against those who are causing the most harm in our rural communities."

"We know a significant amount of serious and organised crime committed in our county is from criminals travelling from outside the area and will do all we can to prevent them coming here to commit crime. Days of action such as this let people know we are out and about and while not always the case it can often be if someone is involved in criminality the chances are their vehicle will not be roadworthy or they won't have the correct paperwork and this is one way we can target them."

Protect is a campaign being run by West Mercia Police alongside a range of partner agencies to tackle serious and organised crime (SOC).