Anti-social behaviour in Helston rose by almost a third over 12 months - the highest increase out of 17 towns in Cornwall.

This was the news given to Helston Town Council when councillors were visited by members of the Safer Cornwall team, which is made up of bodies such as the police, fire service, NHS and probation service along with volunteers and community groups, and meets every six weeks to discuss keeping communities safe.

Councillors heard that police had reported a 30 per cent rise in anti-social behaviour in Helston - bringing it to a similar level to the Cornish average when compared to 17 other towns with a population of more than 8,000, and the highest percentage increase out of them all.

Erika Sorenson, who analyses the data for Safer Cornwall, said this was "typically noisy drinkers or people on the street making a nuisance of themselves."

She added: "The rise we see was in individual months rather than a general rise. It tends to be in the late afternoon and early evening period.

"There's been some issues with young people drinking outside particular businesses in the town."

Councillor Gillian Geer questioned why the council was only being made aware of this problem now.

"At no point has anybody ever come to us and said 'Helston has a problem with anti-social behaviour, we will send a team'," she said.

Ms Sorenson said: "That's been targeted by police, the anti-social behaviour team and youth offending service, and the figures have dropped back again."

She went on to say that a number of young people had been the subject of intervention as a result of that and the teams were happy it had been addressed, but added that an anti-social behaviour police officer did visit Helston and could be brought in where necessary.

"If police and anti-social behaviour [teams] are doing their jobs it wouldn't come to you as an issue," she said.

Ms Sorenson also broke down the percentage into figures, saying it represented an additional 60 incidents over the course of a year.

Community safety manager Tamsin Lees explained: "It's one of those cases where if you're quite a low crime area percentage increases can seem massive.

"Whilst it's a big increase for Helston, overall it's not a big increase - and because the case workers knew what was happening, it was tackled."

Councillors were told that overall Helston has lower crime levels compared to other towns. There was a four per cent drop in recorded crime over the 12 months, with the greatest reductions in thefts and public disorder.

There had been an increase in domestic abuse, although it remained lower than average for the county.

Ms Sorenson said this could be a "positive increase" caused by better reporting and it was a priority for the partnership to improve accessibility of services and encouraging people to come forward.

There was a "small spike" in burglaries over the winter, but figures were back to normal by March and April.

There were fewer cases of crimes with under 18s as victims.

Figures were taken from the 12 months between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019.

Councillor Ronnie Williams questioned some of the figures, saying: "I think why your statistics are very, very low is because people in general - including me - do not even bother now to report it. It's a complete and utter waste of time."

He said he spent hours on the 101 number trying to report a crime, even going so far as to spend two and a half hours sitting outside Helston Police Station, and when he eventually managed to pass the information on an officer didn't arrive for two days.

Ms Sorenson acknowledged that others had reported similar issues, but said: "The message would always be to report."

Other options included emailing 101@dc.police.uk or filling in a form on the Devon and Cornwall Police website.

"We want to make sure we're concentrating on issues that are having the biggest impact, but we do really need people reporting it to do that," she added.

The team had been speak about the Safer Towns project, which was established in 2018 to provide extra, targeted support to ten towns in Cornwall, including Falmouth, Redruth, Camborne, Penzance and Truro. as they were showing higher levels of issues such as anti-social behaviour, alcohol and drug use, rough sleeping and vulnerable people than other parts of the county.

While Helston was not a 'Safer Town' because its crime levels were not as high as in other areas, Ms Lees stressed that there were resources available when needed.