A CURFEW is be imposed on an area of a Teesside town.

The police will enforce a dispersal order in the Throston part of Hartlepool from 9pm on Monday, November 1, for under-16s.

Gangs coming to the Throston area from around the town have been lighting fires, vandalised walls, run across car bonnets and smashed bottles.

The order, the third imposed by Cleveland Police, means gangs cannot gather and anyone causing trouble will be escorted home. It will begin at 9pm and last until 6am every day.

Persistent offenders will face a fixed penalty notice or an anti-social behaviour order.

Police in Hartlepool will review the curfew after a month and have warned that other areas of town could be next. Other dispersal orders have been imposed in the Saltersgill area of Middlesbrough and the Lakes estate in Redcar.

PC Shelley Watson, police anti-social behaviour officer, said dispersal orders had been effective elsewhere. She said: "There has been problems going on there for a long time and it has been going on in an area where old people live.

"It is a minority of the children and young people, but there is no way this can go on.

"Everyone on the estate, be it police officers, police support staff, whoever, will make this work. We know of at least one estate where this was so effective that they lifted the order in no time.

"Young people coming home from the pictures or whatever, in good order, have nothing to fear.

"It's the gangs causing trouble that we're after."

Hartlepool borough councillor Harry Clouth said anti-social disorder was discussed at a recent residents meeting.

He said: "We've elderly people absolutely terrified. We can't just give in to them every time.

"You've got to fight back."