Bolton town centre police joined by councillors on a night shift

Cllrs Ryan Bamforth, David Grant, Rabiya Jiva, John Walsh, and Melanie Livesey joined Greater Manchester Police officers from 10.30pm till 7am the next day to find out more about the work being done to make the centre safer and how the council can support the work of emergency services.

Cllr Bamforth said: “From the moment we got into the town centre there was a scuffle and the chief inspector had to run over and deal with the altercation.

“They took us round the areas, and we went to the new safe hub that is in an ideal location where people can call into.

“It’s there for everyone, if people are feeling like they have been spiked, they can get some help.

The new safe hub is a place people can call a taxis and wait there, buy sandals to walk home in, charge phones or ask for any support they think they might need.

One thing that Cllr Bamforth said he saw a lot of, was taxi drivers being told to move on after parking on double yellow lines and making illegal turns.

Cllr Bamforth said: “The drivers were taking up most of the police resources because they were just parking wherever they wanted to.

“But it was good to see the police so proactive and we went into one bar, Levels, which had a ID scanner so fraudulent IDs would be stopped.

“It was very impressive and interesting to see how police operate in Bolton.

“To see how they work the radios which were constantly going off all night.”

Fifty officers were at the initial briefing which Cllr Bamforth said was an ‘eyeopener’ into what the police do to protect the general public.

He said: “It was a good eye-opener to see what they do, as they stayed there till 7am the next day doing this.

“We were seeing some people just going out there purely to antagonise the police.

“The police have the patience of a saint.”

Cllr Bamforth said he was impressed with the police’s way of dealing with harassment as numerous occasions where women were approached by men they did not know, were stopped by police during the night.

Labour councillor and cabinet member for stronger communities Rabiya Jiva, said the night was an example of how police deal with those pushing boundaries.

She said: “Police and trade all work very hard in ensuring Bolton is safe for people to enjoy themselves.

“Local businesses contribute to this very well as they can aid in ensuring they have the correct equipment and capacity to stop fraudulent IDs, and remove people who may be breaking the law.

“It gave us an incite of the amount of work police do and how they have to deal with individuals who push and try and test the boundaries.

“Businesses and establishments were running premises safely and I’d like to thank the businesses who ran through all the measures they put in place to keep people safe."