Members of the town council have raised concerns about the visibility of police officers in Maldon.

The town council has subsidised one special sergeant and two special constables since the end of last year, who serve the town as voluntary officers.

The initiative, unique to Essex Police, requires officers to carry out patrols in Maldon to help identify and address local issues of concern.

At a meeting of the town council last night (Monday 25 October), Councillor Mark Heard said: "This council was very keen to champion three special officers in order to be seen by the town."

However, he said that he was "disappointed" by the update sent by Special Constable Bryan Trigg on officers' recent patrols.

In his written update to councillors, Bryan said that he is "looking into the possibility of [officers] going into schools at some point, but this requires more work".

Councillor Heard said: "Someone looking at the possibility of something [...] - I don't think that's helpful at all."

He also cited Bryan's mention of there being "recent issues" around Oak Tree Meadow and Pirates Bay Adventure Golf in Promenade Park.

"I'd like to know what those issues are," Councillor Heard said.

"That's why they're here - to be our eyes and ears."

He added: "It's a police presence that we want, and that's what we'd like to see."

Councillor Christopher Swain added that it would have been "quite valuable to have police presence" at the bigger events in the Prom over the summer which, he said, "caused all sorts of issues".

Councillor Carlie Mayes also asked PC Pete Carter, a member of Maldon's community policing team who was present at yesterday's meeting, how many patrols were carried out by officers on the High Street.

While PC Carter told members that officers do not record exact details of their patrols, he said that the special officers in Maldon "all exceed the hours that they're contracted to", which stands at 16 hours each month.

Roger Hirst, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, who was also at the meeting, added: "The specials have been doing double their hours - the ones you've got here are really excelling in their hours."

He said that a reduction in crime is achieved by "active patrols" in hotspots around town centres, and cited the "success" of recent hotspot policing trials in Southend.

The trials involved Essex Police implementing regular patrols in areas of the town with higher levels of violence throughout 2020, which led to a 73.5 per cent drop in violent crime and 31.9 per cent fall in street crime on the days the hotspots were patrolled in comparison to the days they were not.

Mr Hirst told councillors that the force is going to roll out these targeted hotspot interventions "across the county" in order to "focus on prevention" of crime.