Police have been called on to crackdown on a gang of youths accused of drug-taking, vandalism and anti-social behaviour in east Suffolk.

Wickham Market Parish Council made the calls at its latest meeting on Monday after highlighting growing concerns with increasingly unruly behaviour happening “virtually every night of the week”.

Councillor Alan Biddle blamed the trouble on a “new gang of kids who are trying to destroy everything we do in the village” and said he had heard of some “disgusting stuff” taking place in the public toilets.

Although complaints had been raised with the police, Mr Biddle said the officers “always turn up when it’s relatively quiet”.

“We should ask the police to raise their profile and try to chivvy them up to be here when we want them to be,” he added. “Most of the problems happen on Friday and Saturday but there are incidents virtually every night of the week.”

Mr Biddle was particularly concerned by the criminal damage at the public toilets, which he said were in a “terrible state”.

John Hoe, who presents the village’s police reports, said officers were aware of the problems but agreed that a letter from the parish council help reinforce their efforts.

A Suffolk police spokesman, speaking after the meeting, said the Woodbridge and District Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) was aware of anti-social behaviour in the village over recent weeks. “Police work with partner agencies to ensure matters of this nature are dealt with robustly and rely heavily on information from local people for matters to be reported swiftly when they are occurring,” the spokesman added.

People are invited to highlight issues at SNT priority setting meetings. The next one is held at Orford Town Hall from 7pm on October 22.