‘ELLO ‘ello ‘ello... what have we here then? The cosiness of our neighbourhood bobbies characterised by the likes of Dixon of Dock Green may be a stereotype confined to the BBC archives, but some local policing teams are harking back to the days where officers were at the centre of the community - the eyes and ears patrolling the streets. In Northenden the local officers are keen to get their feet firmly back on the community beat. Now their Neighbourhood Policing Unit has extended its patrol hours to halt anti-social behaviour and crimes stemming from weekend drinking. The Reporter joined a Friday night patrol to see the scheme in operation ...

A ROW escalates between a slightly sozzled couple. Groups of school children work out who looks most likely to get served for a crate of Blue WKD. A disheartened takeaway owner strains his ears to understand a another slurred demand for a chicken kebab with extra chilli.

That’s right, it’s a typical Friday night scene, one that’s played out in towns and cities across Britain every weekend.

You can watch this stuff any night off the week on programmes with names such exciting names as Cops with Cameras, Police Stop! or It Shouldn’t Happen to a Police Constable.

But tonight I’m on the mean streets of Northenden seeing it at first hand.

Following a spate of violent incidents involving teenagers, the police have turned back the clock and put bobbies back on the beat of the south Manchester town.

So I joined up with Sergeant Kevin Grimsley and Pc Dave Richardson, whose job it is to walk the streets getting to know residents, shop-keepers and other community figures to drive down the low level crime that can seriously blight the lives of ordinary people.

And what an experience it is proving.

Inebriated lads call out in hysterics ‘Here he is... come and arrest him’, nudging their embarrassed mates at the sight of the police officers.

‘Here come the strippers!’ a gaggle of women screech at the sight of the uniformed boys in blue down at their local.

It’s not an enviable job - getting stick from drunken revellers and frog marching boozy teens back home to their parents.

In recent years Northenden has developed a night-time economy, with a number of bars and pubs now open until the small hours.

Following an incident during the summer when a gang of young men joined a mass brawl on Palatine Road, the police introduced a trial of late night patrols.

Their work was so successful in calming potential incidents, that the policing team is continuing its extended hours until 1am on a Friday and Saturday night.

"It is the anti-social behaviour which affects people’s daily lives, things like gangs of youths congregating on street corners makes people feel uncomfortable and afraid to go out," Sgt Kevin Grimsley tells me just as a group of young men inside one of the pubs pull faces at us and bang on the window like excitable chimpanzees.

"The vast majority are decent kids, but sometimes things get out of control. We decided the best way of addressing the problem was for officers to patrol on foot to find out the issues first hand."

My patrol with Sgt Grimsley and Pc Richardson takes us into all the bars and off-licences in the village (the strangest ‘pub crawl’ I’ve ever been on) chatting to licensees, staff, customers and people out on the streets.

Most of it is jovial enough; a couple of rowdy revellers are ejected from Kaz Bar on Palatine Road, but mostly people are comforted, confused or amused at the sight of officers in the bars.

Sgt Grimsley admits "We do get a fair bit of stick - the usual question people ask is if we are the stripograms! But most people feel reassured knowing that we are nearby in case anyone causes trouble. The response patrols will also be on hand to blue light emergencies wherever they are, but our task is preventing the problems before they arise.

"It became very clear in the summer that the village was experiencing problems with a minority of drinkers in the bars and some of the owners were saying they had become frightened.

"We’re now going back to something more like the old perception of a police officer, someone who knows the people in the community. They are the best ones to tackle local problems." And after a couple of hours on the beat I can see it’s true – there are lots of people who know the officers’ names and stop to talk to them.

A young girl trots across the street to speak to Sgt Grimsley.

"Two weeks ago she was lying on the pavement with no shoes on hurling abuse at me. We took her home and have offered her help to stop her drinking," he says.

The teenager tells me she was drunk on vodka and had to be escorted home.

She tells the boys in blue: "I’m really sorry for the way I behaved. I know I lied about my age and I wouldn’t tell you where I lived, I’m not drinking tonight though - I’m going to my aunty’s house.

"A lot of my friends have a drink on the weekend, we sometimes sit by the river and drink there."

This is one of the main tasks Sgt Grimsley and his team have to contend with on weekends.

We are plunged into darkness as we take a stroll along the teen boozing hotspot along the fast flowing River Mersey.

It is not long before we stumble across three skimpily dressed school kids all looking a little bleary eyed.

Their initial insistence that they haven’t touched a drop, is soon replaced by the unconvincing protest: "I’ve only had a can of shandy".

Then one of the girls admits she has had some vodka given to her by a boy she didn’t really know.

Amazingly two of the kids turned out to be just 12-years-old. The 15-year-old sober sister took of one of the girls them back home after they gave the police their names and addresses.

The regular and later patrols help pin point these issues and from this they can help prolific teenage drinkers.

The bars and off-licences also have fewer problems with underage drinkers attempting to get served and genuinely seem to feel reassured by the extra visible forces on the streets.

In fact, the response has been overwhelming, everyone seems really glad to have the bobbies to hand on weekends.

Neil Paley, the co-owner of Bar Bibo - which had it’s shutters ripped off by brawling men during the summer - said he now feels much safer.

He said: "We’ve brought in a good CCTV system to try to prevent things like that happening again.

"It’s been really good getting to know the police in the area, to be honest it’s not something you expect in this day and age.

"It’s what we need - more police on the streets stopping things before they happen and not stuck behind desks."