A crime-busting summit meeting involving Government, Police and community groups is set to be held later this summer.

The plan -- announced by Premier Pamela Gordon -- came as she called for a community effort to beat drugs and crime.

Ms Gordon said: "This summer I will convene a summit meeting that will cement the partnerships necessary between Government, the Police, the churches and all of our community-based institutions.

"And we're hoping it will bring out the concepts so people can feel part of Bermuda -- people need to feel this is their Bermuda.'' And Ms Gordon is set to go on the beat with Police Commissioner Jean Jacques Lemay and the crime-fighting Task Force to see the Island's problems firsthand.

The move was announced by Ms Gordon in a lunchtime speech yesterday -- seen as the opening broadside in an as yet unofficial General Election campaign.

She said afterwards: "We are trying to pull all the players together -- that's what we're aiming at.

"This summit will be a brain-storming session to determine how all the key players in the community can do the positive things we want to do.

"The community must be a participant and we have to start from somewhere.'' Ms Gordon said "no one group or person'' had the answer to fighting the menace of crime.

She added: "The reality is how serious the drug problem possibly is in Bermuda and how many families are hurting really badly, not feeling full participants in the overall scheme and we want to find ways to help them participate.'' Ms Gordon said her party was serious about the crime issue, and would continue to recruit the best candidates for the Police force, as well as provide officers with world-class training and technology.

And she vowed: "We will not let up -- we deserve to be safe in our homes, our schools and on our roads. We will not tolerate any area in Bermuda being unsafe.'' And -- as revealed in The Royal Gazette this week -- Government is set to crack down on disused buildings, which are often used as crackhouses and for prostitution.

She said existing laws allowed Government to take over and renovate derelict property -- which would be used for housing for those most in need.

Ms Gordon added that schools would also be targeted in a bid to nip drug use in the bud.

She said: "We will not allow drugs to take away the innocence of our children or destroy the foundation of their homes.'' Ms Gordon pledged that the kind of cooperation between overseas drugs busters and Bermuda seen in Operation Cleansweep, mounted with undercover US Drug Enforcement Administration officers, would be expanded to "cut drugs off at their source.'' Ms Gordon said more than $5 million in drugs had been seized in the first six months of this year alone.

And she added that new hi-tech drug detection devices would come into play at the Airport, while a modern X-Ray screening system had already been introduced for courier packages.

Ms Gordon said: "We are working to stop the importation of drugs, whether by land, sea, or air.'' And she added: "At the same time, we will help those who have fallen prey to drugs by providing the counselling and rehabilitation they require to once again live healthy and productive lives.''