Police in Great Yarmouth have joined social networking site Twitter to keep people in the town in touch with news, events and what’s happening in their neighbourhood.

Norfolk Police has successfully used Twitter to keep the public up-to-date with information on crime and incidents using the Constabulary’s main account, launched in July 2009, that now has more than 8,800 followers.

In June this year the first district account @KingsLynnPolice was launched followed by @ThetfordPolice and @NorwichPoliceUK last month. The accounts have proved popular in offering updates on policing at a much more local level.

Great Yarmouth is now following suit and district policing commander Superintendent Nick Davison hopes the short updates, known as ‘tweets’, will give the public a better insight into police work and help build relationships with people using social networking sites.

He said: “Our officers are on patrol 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are continually working to make our communities safer. We carry out a range of tasks and we hope that Twitter will allow us to provide local policing updates on a variety of issues that you might not usually get to hear about. There is a lot of good work going on and we also want as many people as possible to have access to information about what is happening in their area. Twitter provides another way to get messages out as well as providing us with instant feedback.”

The account, @GYarmouthPoliceUK was launched on Friday and will be used by officers, PCSOs and the superintendent to update people living in and around the town about what’s going on.

Supt Davison reassured residents that officers would continue to use traditional methods of engagement such as community surgeries, the media and the existing Police Direct service to keep members of the public informed on policing matters.

He said: “@GYarmouthPoliceUK will complement the existing methods used to engage with the public.”