A mobile police station for Inverness will be part of a push to increase public safety across the Highlands and islands this summer.
As part of Operation Respect, the unit will be sited in various locations across the city and rotated every two or three weeks.
At a team briefing at 12pm yesterday on the city’s High Street, police said that the focus of the overall operation was to make the streets safer for the public by meeting the key objective of disrupting, detecting and deterring offenders.
Areas in Inverness where the mobile unit will be located include Falcon Square, Church Street, Inshes Retail Park, as well as Dalneigh and Merkinch.
The mobile station was open from 12pm to 7pm yesterday for the public to make any general inquiries.
Chief Inspector Alasdair Macleod said: “In Inverness specifically we are targeting vandalism, anti-social behaviour, violent crime, crimes of dishonesty, and drug crime.
“But across the wider Highlands and islands have also got deployments in other areas. We have youth development co-coordinating officers who will be actively engaging with young people in the streets.
“We will be using stop and search powers and will generally be engaging with people who we think are behaving inappropriately.”
Sergeant Gwen Ross, who took part in yesterday’s briefing, said : “This operation is really coming off the back of the success of the operation which we had during the Christmas period. It is all about engaging with the public and making ourselves more accessible.”