SATURDAY night was one of Wiltshire Police’s busiest for “some time” as life began returning to normal.

Chief Constable Kier Pritchard said his officers made more than 60 arrests over the weekend, which he said was normal for a sunny weekend in the spring or early summer.

Constables patrolled beer gardens on Saturday and Sunday together with council staff. Although there were “a few” reports of minor disorder in pubs, they’d fizzled out by the times officers arrived, he said.

Mr Pritchard told BBC Radio Wiltshire: “Saturday night itself turned out to be one of our busiest nights for some time we are starting to see a return to pre-covid levels of demand for policing.

“So, quite high numbers of arrests across the weekend. Over 60 arrests across the weekend, which is normal to a busy, sunny weekend in the spring/summer. Things are returning to normal.”

He welcomed the easing of restrictions, saying most people were very respectful and enjoying the moment over the weekend. But he urged people to “each take personal responsibility and not allow our guard to drop too far”.

His comments came as Wiltshire Police earned the praise of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in a new report detailing forces’ response to the pandemic.

The Wiltshire force was namechecked five times in the report, with the watchdog referencing a scrutiny panel set up to monitor whether coronavirus fines were being disproportionately issued to particular groups and praising efforts to maintain contact with staff shielding at home.

Asked whether police forces were left to get on with interpreting the coronavirus rule changes, Mr Pritchard said: “It was incredibly unprecedented, wasn’t it. We were trying to respond to both the medical advice and information, the science, professional judgement and, clearly, when policing normally responds to changes in legislation there is ample time to ensure training, guidance and legislation can be well understood.

“[We] will be trying to interpret that, both in the courts, on the streets as police officers and police staff would be, and also as members of the public.

“I think we saw so many changes to the regulations and of course the HMICFRS report does highlight that did at times lead to confusion and did mean that we were trying to provide guidance ourselves to our officers.

“But the College of Policing, the National Police Chiefs’ Council quickly addressed this and we were able to, as time moved on, very quickly provide up to date guidance to officers and staff to avoid some of the mistakes that were being made in the early stages of the pandemic.”