I WAS interested to read that police Inspector John Boyce feels the police can work together with the residents of an area to achieve “victory over the yobs” (The Bolton News, Friday November 7).

Although I agree with the sentiment and would encourage anyone to inform the police of any incident via their local neighbourhood team if it is not an emergency, I am baffled by what I can only describe as restrictions imposed on our police force with the withdrawal of the dispersal orders that had such a fantastic effect on the “yobs” in the Horwich area several months ago.

Now the groups are back in force and there is little you can do as they tend to have moved on before the police can realistically respond due to their own time pressures.

I daren’t tackle the issue myself because they know which is my house, which cars belong to my family and will cause even more damage to them than they already have.

Please don’t take this out of context. I have never had a problem with our police force, they react as efficiently as possible to any call and follow up on issues in a professional way, but the quote that sprung to mind is that prevention is better than cure.

If we could reintroduce the dispersal orders, borough-wide, at the discretion of the police officers dealing with a group of “yobs” this would surely prevent much of the anti-social behaviour. I have seen this strategy in action and it works.

However, until the return of the order, my current tactic is to do nothing — let’s face it, if I leave them be, they may cause a little bit of damage and inconvenience because they are bored, but if I wage war against them, it will surely be me, as a person with property to be damaged and no way to recover any expenses incurred, who will suffer.

I appreciate that I must be beginning to sound like a broken record now when it comes to this matter, but when can we have the dispersal orders back?

Cllr Kieran Mc