A spike in hate crime and anti-social behaviour is to be addressed by a new action plan approved by a Nottinghamshire district council.

Broxtowe Borough Council’s Community Safety Committee unanimously backed the initiative in a meeting on Thursday, November 12.

With the support of Nottinghamshire Police, the council will stage drop-in sessions, school and community group visits and social media campaigns tackling issues such as substance misuse, healthy relationships and knife crime.

The new scheme will run until March 2022.

Speaking at the meeting, Borough Council Head of Public Protection, David Gell, said: “There is no one action that will solve all anti-social behaviour, but we do have a role to play.

“It’s very much that the action that we take to eradicate and minimise anti-social behaviour should be many and varied.

“This isn’t to say that this is all we will do; clearly if we are faced with another issue then we will deal with that as well, but this is the plan that we are putting in place over the next two years.”

The borough has seen a 65 per cent rise in anti-social behaviour incidents from April 1 compared to last year, although it was noted that breaches of coronavirus restrictions were likely to blame.

But hate crime incidents have also exceeded the 2019-20 figures for the same timeframe.

Nottinghamshire Hate Crime Champion, Ruth Hyde, added that while coronavirus may have had an impact, this could also reflect improved awareness and reporting.

She said: “In Broxtowe, we do experience some hate crime directed at, for example, Chinese restaurants.

“It is true that there was a spike in hate crime directed at Chinese people at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, but that trend hasn’t continued.

“One of the underlying causes of the increase of reporting is that the police have put a lot of effort in ensuring that hate crime is appropriately flagged.

“We are always trying to do better at both recognising these crimes, capturing the data and following up to prevent people being re-victimised.”

Hate crimes and anti-social behaviour are two of the only types of crime to have seen an increase since April 1 compared with last year.

Crime in the borough overall is down by 16 per cent.