Suffolk police have presented a prestigious award to a retail chief for his work on the Reducing the Strength campaign.

Roger Grosvenor, who is the executive officer for retail at the East of England Co-op, was given the County Policing Command Merit Award during a ceremony last Wednesday held at police headquarters in Martlesham.

The prize is rarely presented to those outside of the County Policing Command.

Mr Grosvenor was nominated for the award by Chief Superintendent Jon Brighton for his role working with the police on Reducing the Strength, which tackles street drinking in Ipswich.

Ch Supt Brighton said: “We felt a Merit Award was an ideal way to recognise Roger’s substantial contribution to the Reducing The Strength campaign.

“Without his public support, commitment and dedication, there is absolutely no doubt that it would not have been such a nationally recognised success.

“The strong partnership Roger formed between the public and private sector organisations was ground-breaking.

Mr Grosvenor said: “I feel very humbled to accept this award.

“We recognised how anti-social behaviour in and around our stores, and towards our staff and communities, was a real and serious problem, a problem we’d always wanted to tackle, but we knew that we couldn’t do it alone. So when we were approached by Suffolk police inviting us to be the first retailer to join the scheme we seized the opportunity.

“The success of the campaign in Ipswich prompted us to not only remove these products from all our Suffolk stores, but we also removed them from all our Essex and Norfolk stores too.

“With the support of the police and other agencies we felt we could make a real difference and together we have.”

The East of England Co-op is a member of the EADT/EDP Top100 listing of the 100 biggest businesses in Suffolk and Norfolk.