The new inspector leading community policing in Mansfield has spoken of her admiration for the town as she vowed to continue efforts to clamp down on anti-social behaviour and drug-related crime.

Inspector Kylie Davies joined Nottinghamshire Police eight years ago and has previously worked exclusively in response roles — chasing down suspects and responding to emergencies.

After a year spent coordinating teams of response officers across the county, she has now been appointed to the role of neighbourhood policing inspector.

Former Mansfield Neighbourhood Inspector Nick Butler is retiring from Nottinghamshire Police this spring.

She said: “I have lived in Nottinghamshire throughout my policing career. Mansfield is somewhere that is relatively new to me, but I am really relishing the opportunity to get to know it and understand the key local issues.

“One thing that is immediately obvious is the very strong sense of community that exists here. Many of the people who live in the area have family here as well. They are proud of where they come from and understandably feel very strongly about the small minority of people who behave in a criminal and anti-social way.

“Those concerns are shared equally by all the members of the local policing team. Most of them also live in the area and have family here. They too care deeply about the town and are working every day to make it a better place to live and work.

“My job is to work with them and other partners to carry on that work and find long-term solutions to the problems that exist.

“As time goes by people will see regular updates of our work to target drug dealers and organised criminal gangs operating in the town, but I also want to reassure people that we will also be working hard to tackle issues of anti-social behaviour that we know can affect the quality of people’s lives.

“Just because something — like playing loud music — is not always a crime, it still matters to me and to my team. So if people are experiencing things that are having an impact on their quality of life we want to know about them. Mansfield is already a great place to live and work and we want to make it even better.”

Neighbourhood police officers work to build stronger relationships with local communities and regularly patrol the same areas — finding solutions to longer-term issues and responding to incidents as and when they occur.

As district commander for Mansfield, Inspector Davies is in charge of a team of four sergeants, 20 PCs, 18 PCSOs and seven managed incident officers. Her role is not only to manage their day-to-day work, but also to work in partnership with the police and crime commissioner, district council, Business Improvement District team and other key partners to ensure the most effective response to local issues.

She added: “This is certainly a very different challenge to policing a busy city centre, but I am really looking forward to it, to having the time and space to look into problems more deeply, and to meeting more local people.

“The good news is that we are in a really good place in Mansfield. We have more community officers than we have in a very long time and have recently implemented a range of new initiatives with Safer Streets funding, including the implementation of our hugely successful burglary reduction scheme and the addition of a range of new automatic number plate recognition cameras in the area.

“I want families to feel 100 per cent confident to visit the town centre at all times of the day, and I also want them to feel safe and secure in their own homes.

“But to do that we do need to work in partnership with residents. We need them to work with us and to tell us about the problems they are facing so we can investigate them. We can always be contacted by calling 101 or via social media, and our officers regularly hold in-person surgeries at local venues, which will now include council officers who may be better placed to offer immediate help with certain issues.”