POLICE support staff from force headquarters in Newby Wiske took a team building day trip with a difference to York.

While some companies send their staff for a day of wine-tasting or a round of golf in an attempt to foster relations in the work place, North Yorkshire Police decided a day of scrubbing graffiti in Nunnery Lane was the ideal way to build team spirit.

Administration staff contacted police in York to ask what they could do to help in the community. The city’s Safer Neighbourhoods chief knew exactly how to put their efforts to good use.

Inspector Mark Khan, pictured, said: “It helped to increase their understanding of how the police work.

“They asked where they could help with a community problem and said they were offering 20 people to come and do some work and wanted to know where to go.

“We obviously can’t give them work patrolling the city centre at night but this is the sort of work they could do – and it’s very important work.”

The staff, who consisted of members of the press office team and other support departments, used graffiti cleaning kits to scrub walls throughout Nunnery Lane area.

“Graffiti has been a problem round there and this was requested by people in the community,” said Insp Khan.

“It’s about North Yorkshire Police encouraging all its staff to understand the community problems and how we solve those problems, so that when they support the front line they have an idea of what we do.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” he said.

Neighbourhood officer PC Kelly McTighe said: “The exercise was very successful.

“The tags that were removed were some of the more noticeable ones, in some of the worst-hit areas.

“It is very important to get involved in initiatives like this to show that we are willing to try everything to help our communities.

“We do these initiatives in response to feedback from our residents and I hope that this will encourage them to assist us in the future and give them a sense of pride in their community.”

Insp Khan said support staff previously came to York at Christmas to hand out crime prevention leaflets in the city centre and they were likely to continue with similar initiatives.

“This will certainly be an ongoing thing,” he said.