Kent Police issued three penalty notices for public drinking under a new order across Margate and Ramsgate between 10 and 12 July 2026, but made no beach arrests and dispersed nobody from any of the three coastal towns.
No arrests. No dispersals. Just sandcastles and ice creams — which is, frankly, how a July weekend at the seaside ought to go.
Kent Police has reported a trouble-free weekend across Thanet’s coastal towns, with no arrests on the beaches and no dispersals carried out in Broadstairs, Margate or Ramsgate between Friday 10 and Sunday 12 July 2026. Three people did receive penalty notices for breaching the new Public Spaces Protection Order by drinking alcohol in public — two on Margate beach, one in Ramsgate High Street — but officers didn’t need to use their dispersal powers at any point across the three days.
Chief Inspector Ian Swallow, district commander for Thanet, said: “It’s really pleasing that the message is getting through that people who come to Thanet intent on causing antisocial behaviour will be dealt with.” What officers saw instead, he said, was people “building sandcastles, going for an ice cream and having fun in the arcades, rather than people fighting, getting drunk and being abusive.” Swallow added that the force is “not complacent” and will maintain a high-visibility presence for the rest of the summer.
The calm weekend comes after two months of sustained enforcement. Between 1 May and 1 July 2026, Kent Police issued 219 dispersal notices across the three towns — each requiring a suspect to leave an area or face arrest if they refused or returned. Officers also handed out 14 Community Protection Warnings, made 17 home visits to reported offenders, and sent 42 letters to households.
The dispersal notices, Community Protection Warnings and the PSPO — which allows officers to fine people for drinking in designated public spaces — form the backbone of the force’s approach to antisocial behaviour in Thanet this summer. And Swallow had a message for those who’d behaved themselves: they were “always welcome to come back.”