“It is completely untrue to suggest that there has been any interference from children’s social care in the work of the police to address criminal acts or youth antisocial behaviour. There is strong evidence of joint working across our town. The police, local authority and local community organisations have worked hard to address the concerns of local residents and engage vulnerable children and young people in positive activities. Whilst some serious and impactful issues remain, we have seen a drop in the number of incidents in the specific wards concerned – we will continue to work to further drive down these instances.

“The Youth Justice Partnership in Blackpool rightly takes a ‘child first' approach to antisocial behaviour among children, but this does not mean that offending is taken lightly. To suggest that an 11-year-old is the ringleader of a gang of teenagers is both harmful to individual children and detracts from the very real national issue of county lines, where vulnerable children are exploited and used to commit criminal acts to protect adults from arrest and prosecution. Uninformed comments are unhelpful and add nothing to the work that is underway to address these issues.

“As part of our joint response to antisocial behaviour in some central wards, Blackpool will receive a partnership award from the government's national £300m Turnaround programme, which includes £60m for schemes to help stop youngsters falling into crime. Sadly, despite the announcement being made here in Blackpool in May of this year and that funding would commence from October, we have since been advised by the Ministry of Justice that they are not yet able to confirm the details with us and we are unable to progress this vital work.”