I know how important the issue of anti social behavior is locally and how much it can blight the lives of those who experience it — especially our elderly.

So I was very pleased to see our Home Secretary setting out her plans for tackling the booze culture that so often underpins it.

The cost of alcohol abuse in our country is staggering. Around seven million attendances at hospital A&Es are alcohol-related, at a cost of £650-million per year.

More than a million ambulance visits a year are reckoned to be alcohol-related and this costs a further £370-million. On top of this, the cost of alcohol-related crime and disorder are estimated to be between 8 and 13 billion pounds per year. And that amount, of course, does not factor in the non tax payer costs and the non financial costs such as the fear and, in some cases, ruined lives of those affected by it.

So what is Theresa May proposing? Here's what she said last Wednesday: 'We will overhaul the Licensing Act to ensure that local people have greater control over pubs, clubs and other licensed premises.

'We will allow their local authority to charge more for late-night licences, which they will then be able to plough back into late-night policing in their area.

'We will double the fine for under-age sales and allow authorities to permanently shut down any shop or bar that persistently sells alcohol to children.

'We will ban the below-cost sale of alcohol, to ensure that retailers no longer sell alcohol at irresponsible prices. And responsibility for licensing will return from the Culture Department to the Home Office so we can join up licensing policy with policing the consequences of drink-fuelled disorder.'

Even I'll drink to that.