Transport police are targeting low level crime by stepping up patrols on late night trains heading out of London for the coast.

Neighbourhood policing teams move through transport hotspots conducting high-visibility and plain clothes police patrols and they have already netted 84 arrests during targeted operations in the last four weeks.

Transport Police have stepped up their patrols at stations in Mid Sussex on a Friday and a Saturday night and, as a result, detection rates for drugs have more than doubled.

Teams on trains are concentrating their patrols on services in and out of Victoria, Waterloo, Charing Cross and London Bridge but a southern team has just been set up to police trains further down the line to Brighton and coastal routes across Sussex.

Annual crime figures produced by British Transport Police for 2007-2008 show that crime has risen by 25 per cent at Haywards Heath station where 95 crimes were recorded for the period.

Crime fell by 21 per cent in Burgess Hill and by 38 per cent in Hassocks where car and bicycle crime has halved.

The statistics look dramatic on paper but crime figures in Mid Sussex remain low overall. Last year for example, four drug offences were detected by British Transport Police compared to one the previous year.

Read the full story in the Mid Sussex Times

What do you think? Send us your views, along with your name and street name, to middy.news@sussexnewspapers.co.uk, or comment online now by registering or signing in below