Officers from Acle Road Policing and Acle Safer Neighbourhood Team joined forces recently to prevent criminals from using Norfolk’s road network and to promote road safety on one of its busiest roads.

Between 9:50am and 2:45pm on Friday 30 July 2010 officers took part in operation on the A47 at Acle, looking at people who were using vehicles in an illegal manner. Supported by the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) team and the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA), officers were stopping cars and lorries and running checks.

During the initiative, over 10,000 vehicles were checked through the ANPR equipment with 44 having issues which needed to be investigated. Of those 44, three vehicles were seized (two for no insurance and one for no driving licence) and two had Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) issued for no MOT.

Sgt Ady Hales, Acle Road Policing, commented on the initiative saying: “This high profile operation was a true multi agency check with colleagues from the ANPR team and the Vehicle and Operators Services Agency supporting road policing and SNT officers.

"Re-emphasising our message around using vehicles on the road safely, at least one defect was found in over 25% of the vehicles stopped, including four heavy goods vehicles and resulted in us seizing either unlicensed or uninsured vehicles during this successful operation.”