MORE than 60 potential weapons or harmful objects are being taken off the streets of Wrexham each weekend, it has been said.

Mold-based firm Parallel Security provides a street marshall foot patrol service in cities and towns where the police teams need extra resource to assist with certain duties.

We joined Parallel director Mel Pengelly and MD Francis Johnson in Wrexham city centre, where one such scheme is active.

Mr Pengelly said: "Rightly or wrongly, not everyone will go to the police for advice with issues.

"We find that by hand-picking our street marshalls, they have the personalities and characters to be welcoming and we find people will go to them more than the police.

"That enables us to gather intelligence, which we compile and give to the police to act on."

Mr Johnson said: "We are like a bridge between the community and the police.

"We do a brief with the police every night before we go out on the streets regarding what we're looking for, any potential issues and how many clubs are open."

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One duty the street marshalls have taken on is not one they expected to, Mr Pengelly explained.

He said: "One of the big things we have been doing is collecting glass bottles and anything that could potentially be used as a weapon, or that people could fall on.

"On average, we collect 60 glass bottles a weekend off the floor and put them in the bin."

Mr Pengelly added it is unlikely the city's revellers brought those bottles and pint glasses out with them - more likely they brought them out onto the street from inside licenced premises, which they shouldn't be able to do.

He urged door staff and premises to "tighten up" to ensure the objects don't end up in a place where someone in the street may reach for them in an argument, or fall on them accidentally.

Mr Johnson said one big discovery the marshalls made at a venue in recent weeks came during the first day of the Knife Angel's visit to Wrexham.

"It was a knife," he said - "not a small knife, a big one.

"It was found left somewhere. Our guys removed that and gave it to the police.

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"Anyone could have got their hands on that, and it was ironic because it was the first night the Knife Angel was here."

Speaking of the wider partnership working to keep people safe in Wrexham's night time economy, and the street marshalls' place in it, he added: "Sometimes agencies in towns and cities can be adversarial.

"But in Wrexham, everyone works together - and it's good to see.

"You don't get that in all local authority areas."