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Teams of people descended on Haverhill this morning determined to make an impact.

With all the precision of a military exercise, the 25th Impact event in Suffolk carried out a clean sweep of everything from litter and graffiti to untaxed cars.

The main focus chosen was the Clements estate, but there was also an intensive clean-up of the Stour Brook along Ehringshausen Way, and another vehicle checking centre set up in the Cineworld car park, along similar lines to a recent evening clampdown.

After an early morning briefing two pedestrian teams containing people from agencies such as Suffolk County Council, St Edmundsbury Borough Council, Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service, Trading Standards, Suffolk Police, Environment Agency, Havebury Housing, VOSA, DVLA and HM Revenues and Customs, set off to blitz the Clements estate.

The teams, identified by high visibility uniforms, cleaned up the area as well as carrying out a truancy sweep, targeting anti-social behaviour, carrying out checks on under-age sale of alcohol and cigarettes, removing graffiti and checking for vehicle offences.

They also be provided advice and delivered information leaflets to residents in the area in order to inform local people of action taking place in their area to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour and to make their communities safer.

IMPACT events aim to give local people the chance to see agencies working together on the ground making a real difference to local areas.

It also allows agencies to tackle problems there and then, as well as picking up longer-term intelligence on local problems or issues.

Suffolk community safety officer in charge of the events was John Sanderson, who said the agencies had responded to what people in Haverhill wanted.

Agencies had focused on anti-social behaviour, graffiti, recorded crime and other indicators to choose their target, but also listened to what communities had said to their rep[resentatives on the ground.

By the end of the exercise at lunchtime and impressive catalogue of achievements was put together to show the results of the morning.

Two tipper lorry loads of debris had been removed from the Stour Brook, graffiti had either been removed or scheduled for removal, a number of untaxed cars identified, 15 home safety fire checks carried out and various other fire safety issues identified, six parking issues (including one boat) had been discovered and 1,300 car speeds checked.

Three premises were visited about under-age sales, several fly-tipping sites identified, garage maintenance requirements uncovered and an anti-litter programme considered for the shops area.

However, no truancy was found at all.