A new county-wide crackdown on drug dealers should help to tackle people’s fear of drug crime in Bradford, West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson said.

Mr Burns-Williamson was responding to a survey carried out by his office into people’s worries about drug-dealing and drug-taking in their area.

This showed that public fears about the level of drug crime are far worse in Bradford than in the rest of West Yorkshire.

The questionnaire, which measures people’s perception of crime rather than the number of actual crimes recorded, revealed that although people in the district feel slightly better about the issue than they did five years ago, that improvement is significantly smaller than it is across the county.

A report into the findings, being presented to Bradford Council next week, also says there are “very high levels of public concern in the more deprived parts of the district”.

Mr Burns-Williamson said tackling drugs in Bradford was one of his priorities.

He said more police resources were being put into tackling drug dealers and burglars across West Yorkshire, through a force-wide operation called Operation Viper.

He said: “As part of the local policing review we are establishing an additional capability through Operation Viper to target issues like drug dealing to complement front-line policing.

“Overall crime in West Yorkshire is down by eight per cent.

“However, I believe there is still more which can be done to ensure our communities are not only safer, but also feel safer.

“It is the collective responsibility of police and partners to bring about a change in perceptions and I continue to visit areas of Bradford to ensure we are working together in a way which achieves this goal.”