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Police in Cornish resort Newquay are putting undercover spotters on trains to catch people bringing drugs and alcohol into the town.

Operation Brunel is part of new measures to combat under-age drinking and anti-social behaviour.

Police at Newquay railway station confiscate alcohol from under-age passengers.

Drinking has also been banned in Newquay town centre after two teenagers died after falling from cliffs in 2009.

Anyone buying alcohol in Newquay must show a passport or driving licence to prove their age in a clampdown on under-age drinking in the resort.

Thousands of young people have started coming to Newquay as the summer holiday gets into full swing.

Sgt Ian Drummond-Smith, from Devon and Cornwall Police, said: "This is the time when the post exam exodus has started. Hopefully people are getting the message. The idea is to make it as difficult as possible to bring alcohol in."

Searches are also taking place at Newquay airport.

A number of 16-year-olds have also been returned to their parents after being found drunk in the resort.

I have to show my driving license to purchase alcohol everywhere else, did they not previously bother to check in Newquay!?  :P

This clampdown in Newquay is going to destroy it as a resort. There's absolutely no way that the Nirvana of the post war years is going to be recovered. Once again a few accidents and incidents are being used to kill off the only realistic trade the town can hope for.

Shame.

fairly well heeled studenty types, your Tarquins and Lucindas

I'm just being pragmatic and realistic. Newquay is lost, it's only market now is the current one. If it's forced out it'll die. There are alternatives in Cornwall and the SW for the more mature clients.

The reaction of CC and the authorities is nothing short of the class detention, and wholly inappropriate. It's unfortunate that there have been cliff fall deaths, but to use them as the excuse for this clampdown is crassly stupid and only goes further to cause resentment and hatred of the authorities. 

Police search teenagers converging on Newquay to 'stamp out anti-social behaviour'

Thousands of school leavers converging on Newquay were subjected on Friday to random searches by police and sniffer dogs as part of efforts to stamp out rising anti-social behaviour.

Plainclothes police patrolled trains from London and key flights into Newquay airport while sniffer dogs were deployed at the local railway station as officers sought to intercept drugs and alcohol carried by under age drinkers.

Dozens of teenagers were searched by police as part of a bid to create a ^ring of steel^ around the Cornish surf resort.
 
The clampdown is part of Devon and Cornwall police^s Operation Brunel that is aimed at eradicating anti-social problems currently blighting the beach town. The move is also designed to prevent a repeat of last year^s mayhem, during which two teenagers fell to their deaths from cliffs at the resort.

While figures were not available for Friday's part of the operation, over the past week police have randomly searched dozens of teenagers arriving at the train station with 10 people arrested for drugs offences.

Throughout the town over the past few weeks, police have confiscated hundreds of cans of alcohol, sent 21 children home and cautioned dozens of others.

An estimated 3,000 16-to-18-year-olds are believed to be currently staying in Newquay at present as the town becomes known as the ^party capital^ of the south.

Police are concerned the invasion has become a summer ^ritual^ and have criticised parents for allowing teenagers to visit the resort unsupervised. Officers are particularly alarmed to discover that some parents were dropping under-age teenagers off with alcohol and then going home.

Sgt Ian Drummond-Smith, the officer in charge of the operation, said annecdotedly that the resor was "much quieter". He said many teenagers were aware of the police operation and were not risking making trouble. "It is a lot quieter throughout Newquay now and it is fairly different from last year," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Last year there was a lot more booze on the trains and throughout the town but people now know we will be out in force so don't want to risk it and we hope the message is getting through."

Police promised to take ^tough and robust^ action in the wake of the deaths last year of Paddy Higgins, 16, and Andrew Curwell, 18, who fell from cliffs after nights out in Newquay.

The family of Paddy, from Wokingham, Berks, later released a photograph of him drinking spirits a few house before his death, and called for parents and youngsters to boycott the town until it tightened its policy towards under age drinking.

Operation Brunel is also run in conjunction with Cornwall Council and partner agencies.