POLICE are not doing enough to curb antisocial behaviour on Salisbury’s streets, the leader of Salisbury city council has said.

Matthew Dean made the comments when questioned about his council’s own crackdown on street drinking in the city centre.

The city council hired two private security guards to patrol the area around the Market Square, costing almost £10,000 in July alone.

Traders around the square reported an improvement since the scheme launched.

But critics said it had just moved the problem elsewhere.

A report on the scheme’s progress is due to be presented to the council’s policy and resources committee on Tuesday.

Cllr Dean said the trial had revealed the true scale of the problem.

“We thought we needed to move on a few druggies and a few drunks that were hassling our shoppers in the market square, but it’s much bigger than that,” he said.

He said the stewards had stopped people getting mugged, and called for more support from the police.

“I’m not happy with the amount of resources the police devote to Salisbury at the moment,” he said. “It’s not sufficient.”

Inspector Pete Sparrow said a third of his PCSOs worked in the city centre but the police could not “arrest their way out of the problem”.

Cllr Dean said the project alone was not going to solve the antisocial behaviour issue and the city council needed to work closely with homelessness charities and other agencies.

Wiltshire Council needed to manage its car parks and the library steps properly, and shopkeepers needed to obey licensing laws, he added.

“I don’t want to see individual cans of super-strength lager being sold to people who clearly have problems,” he said. “It doesn’t happen in pubs.”

Opposition councillors have criticised the Tory administration for failing to keep them and the public in the picture.

Labour’s John Walsh said: “Advance warning of this initiative was very vague and did not contain any concrete information on timings or costings.

“Opposition councillors are completely in the dark as to how much the council intends to spend on this project, which has dubious benefits as it simply displaces the problem elsewhere.”

“The currently Conservative administration is coming across as high handed and inept in it’s dealings with the public.”

And Cllr Tom Corbin said he was disappointed with the lack of information after a previous meeting on the matter was cancelled.

Cllr Dean said he was always happy to provide more information about the project, but none of the opposition councillors had approached him.