Town councillors have welcomed vital backing to slap an order curbing anti-social behaviour on Tavistock’s Meadows but have ruled out suggestions that they install CCTV cameras to catch culprits in the act.

West Devon Borough Council’s hub committee sent a plan to impose a public spaces protection order on the vandalism-plagued park on the last lap of its journey last week.

If, as expected, it is approved by full council at the end of the month, the order will give police more powers to deal with alcohol-related crime in the Meadows.

Town councillors, as owners of the Meadows, asked the borough council to make the order after a series of outrages in the park over the past 18 months, which included a drunken fight in full view of families during the summer, thousands of pounds worth of vandalism to public property and apparent attempts to injure residents by planting broken glass traps concealed in pits in the area.

Residents who responded to a borough council survey over whether the order should be imposed on the park spoke of incidents of harassment and intimidation at the Meadows.

Police attempted to break up large gatherings of youths in the park by twice imposing temporary 48-hour dispersal orders on the Meadows at the height of the problems.

The borough council’s hub committee recommended to its full council that the order, supported by Devon’s police and crime commissioner Alison Hernandez, should be imposed. However, the proposal drew questions over whether the police would have sufficient resources to enforce the order andwhether CCTV cameras would help provide evidence of wrongdoing to officers.

But the town council has ruled that idea out as it would not work because of the layout of the Meadows.

In a statement, they said: ’The council warmly welcomes the recommendation of the hub committee for West Devon Borough Council to support the proposal for a Public Spaces Protection Order in the Meadows. Because of the unsuitability of site topography for the effective use of alternative measures such as CCTV the order, if approved, will provide a valuable tool in the prevention and control of anti-social behaviour in this important community space.’

The hub committee’s decision to recommend the order for approval was also welcomed by trustees of the park’s Sensory Garden, which has suffered hundreds of pounds of vandalism in the past year.

Spokesman Graham Parker said: ’We’re right behind it in principle â?? we will support anything which protects the garden.’