Police have increased patrols after complaints of anti social behaviour in Kilwinning Abbey area – including volunteers being targeted and woman offering to flash kids.

Community representatives raised the alarm on ongoing incidents in the Abbey Ground – with Cllr Donald Reid warning the current level of policing is not currently acceptable.

Speaking at Kilwinning Community Council’s September meeting, Sgt Allen Dodds said: “I’d like to take the opportunity to address these concerns and issues surrounding the Abbey.

“We’ve been quite proactive in the Abbey the last couple of weeks. We had a meeting with the tourism destination development manager at Historic Scotland. We had our preventions and interventions officer and people from a church and the heritage society all got together to discuss the issues we’ve had at the Abbey and how we move forward.

“Last month we had a report of vandalism within the Abbey walls and we’ve managed to report one female for that. I’m aware the other day we’ve had additional vandalism when they’ve broke some stones and carved some names into a gravestone – so that inquiry is in advance stages at the moment of identifying who the person is.

“We’ve got an action plan regarding youth disorder and the youths within the town centre and it resulted in a substantial amount of alcohol being seized. We had several people reported for purchasing alcohol for the youths, we had one youth arrested for anti-social behaviour and a few were reported for possession of controlled drugs and alcohol as well.

“If I’m honest, while the town is very busy and it is intimidating it’s a minority committing the antisocial behaviour, the rest are hangers on and they do tend to run away from us. We’re having a meeting with the council Youth Development worker to try and find another way.”

Cllr Donald Reid said: “They are throwing rocks and throwing eggs which is alarming.”