KINGSBRIDGE saw a 37 and a half per cent drop in crime from November 2014 to last month.

Sergeant Dave Green, Kingsbridge Police, gave his police report to Kingsbridge Town Council at their full council meeting on Tuesday, December 8, where the number of crimes recorded during November 2015 was 20, compared to 32 in the same month last year.

Seven of the crimes last month lead to arrests, two lead to a community resolution and others are still under investigation.

They included three minor assaults, none of which involved an injury, three criminal damages, one shoplifting offence, eight miscellaneous thefts and three drink drivers, who were arrested.

Sgt Green explained that the large drop in crime was due to five graffiti incidents occurring last November, each of which were recorded as a separate crime, and shoplifting offences had dropped from six to one.

Sgt Green also went on to say that South Devon was seeing a lot of power tool thefts from sheds, although not specifically in the Kingsbridge area, and reminded residents to check and lock sheds securely.

This month, Kingsbridge Police’s monthly road safety theme is drink and drug driving, in support of the national pre-Christmas campaign. This coincides with the office parties and increased socialising that occurs during the festive period.

Sgt Green reiterated the warnings about ‘the morning after’, with many people being caught over the limit the morning after a late night drinking session.

The website: morning-after.org.uk , which you can download as an app for your phone, is a ‘morning after calculator’, where you can add up how much you drank and how long you have to wait before you would be safe to drive again.

As an example, of you say that you had five bottles of real ale, you would need to wait twelve hours before driving; but if you chased those with two double whiskeys, that pushes you up to eighteen hours after you finish drinking, before you can drive.

So if you stopped drinking at midnight after your five bottles and two doubles, you would be unfit to drive until 6pm the following evening.