Police operation is having an impact - but it raises a deeper question

FRIDAY night in Nottingham’s train station and the youths are about.

- By OLIVER PRIDMORE

Officers out as part of the Operation Safenet patrol on Friday

Loads of them, writes OLIVER PRIDMORE.A group of around 20 are loitering outside the railway station's toilets before eventually streaming out onto the NET platform above.

Being young and wearing a hoodie isn't a crime. Neither is doing so with dozens of your mates whilst blasting music out through loudspeakers on a tram platform.

Yet people are visibly uncomfortable. That's why the police are here.

A dedicated patrol as part of Operation Safenet met the Post on Friday to show us how they work.

Meeting at the Nottingham Station NET stop turned out to be rather fortuitous in terms of displaying the point of this operation.

Having first walked into a newsroom in 2015, I'm certainly no shrinking violet, but even I felt a pang of relief when the bobbies arrived.

It's not the fault of the youngsters congregated at the tram stop that youth services in the city have been stripped away following over a decade of austerity - something the city council is now aiming to put right.