I am sure many of your readers were as pleased as I was to see the heightened police presence in your pages, with both PC Craig Purves and Chief Inspector Neil Mitchell providing updates on current activities and their thoughts for the future.

What a shame it is that this increased presence is not replicated on the streets in Haddington, where incidents of unruly and anti-social behaviour seem to carry on unchecked. I know that the police have better things to do than chase underage drinkers and other ne’er-do-wells, but in the absence of parental controls there seems no other authority reining them in.

We are encouraged by PC Purves to call 101 for non-emergency incidents of this nature, but has he or the Chief Inspector ever called it themselves just to see how it works?

I have called it on several occasions, and whilst the response on a weekday in normal hours can be reasonably swift, any attempts on a Friday or Saturday night result in waits of up to 20 minutes before anyone replies, and even then the police can take hours to arrive on the scene. The 101 number is not fit for purpose in such circumstances.

It also seems as if the police are in a completely reactive posture rather than a proactive one. We all know when and where the youth anti-social behaviour usually occurs: behind Tesco from 3.30pm onwards, around Lady Kitty’s Dovecot and on the Aubigny Sports Centre astroturf from 5.30pm onwards, and on the steps of Haddington Rugby Club and in Neilson Park later in the evenings. Is it too difficult to programme police vehicle patrols to take in these locations rather than aimlessly driving down High Street and Market Street as they seem to do at the moment (and incidentally blithely ignoring the illegal parking around the fast food shop outlets)?

I am a great supporter of the police and understand, I think, the resource constraints under which they operate.

But I can’t help get the feeling that they have lost control over Haddington town centre at the weekends.

Stuart Crawford

Haddington