STREET drinking in Hereford city centre continues to be on the decrease, police have said.

The number of offenders and the amount of arrests has lowered since the success of Operation Castlemain, which was run last year in Hereford City Centre.

It increased police presence in the city to target persistent offenders who carried out antisocial behaviour.

And safer neighbourhood team inspector for Hereford city, Nick Semper, said the good work continues.

He said: "All the different agencies and groups work together for the common cause. "We are working at different levels in the same direction. It is one conversation and one direction."

A new initiative called Facewatch has been launched in the centre, which provides a secure online portal for police, businesses and communities to share information to tackle low-level crime.

Sharing images of offenders, within the groups, and submitting digital evidence helps officers solve crimes.

For example, if someone is given an order banning them from certain areas of the city, this can be shared immediately.

Criminal behaviour orders (CBO) have been a key part of cutting down on street drinkers committing crime.

A CBO is made after a conviction and may include banning offenders from certain areas in the city.

As part of Operation Castlemain, 12 persistent offenders were identified, and Insp Semper said, at the moment, only three are currently offending. One has just been sent to prison.

Police sergeant Duncan Reynolds of the Hereford city safer neighbourhood team said before they started Castlemain there were 20 to 30 incidents involving street drinkers, antisocial behaviour and street crime, whereas now it is only one or two.

Arrests have dropped from around six a week to one, and occasionally two.

Twenty surveys were carried out by an independent company with members of the public and businesses in the city centre.

The results showed that 95 percent said they were aware of issues associated with alcohol-related antisocial behaviour in the day time.

And following the operation, 80 percent said they had seen improvements in the area.

The operation also included multi-agency work, working alongside off-licensed premises to restrict sales of super strength alcohol and working with free food service providers.

Officers also worked closely with the CCTV control room in Hereford. If repeat offenders are spotted on the cameras drinking in public, police are alerted.

Deb Stringer, commissioning officer for Herefordshire CCTV, said: "We have got nothing like the amount of disorder we had at the very start. We are picking up the same amount of jobs but they are at low levels."