COMMUNITIES in Pendle are being offered the opportunity to find out more about the work of the police and in particular what is being done to tackle key issues of concern like drug dealing and anti-social behaviour.

Pennine police are introducing quarterly community meetings to report back to residents and seek their views on the activity of officers and their partnership agencies.

Drugs criminality will be the main subject of the first meeting on Monday, February 10, at 7pm at the Northern Technologies Conference Centre, in Netherfield Road, Nelson.

Residents are being invited to join councillors and other community contacts at the event which will had presentations by Inspector Paul Robinson and Pennine Division operations manager Superintendent Steve Hartley.

There will also be unseen video footage of officers taking action against suspected drug dealers.

Superintendent Hartley said: "We are introducing the new community meetings right across Pennine Division in order to improve communication with residents and give them a better insight into our work.

"We are particularly keen to show our communities how important their input is by illustrating just what we can do as a result of information received from the public.

"Nelson was chosen as a venue for the first meeting because of the excellent work done in the town to date to tackle drugs-related criminality.

"Much of that good work has been done as a direct result of information received from residents.

"People will get to see first hand how we deal with suspected offenders and find out about a number of recent high profile operations including Operation Flourish, Nimrod, Flee and Operation Fixture."

Another community meeting will be held next quarter.