Agenda item

To receive any verbal updates from Partners and Community Groups present, including:

·       Police – Neighbourhood Teams

·       Fire & Rescue

To note the following written updates attached to the agenda:

·       Wiltshire Council Items for Information

·       Wilton Town Team minutes

·       Clinical Commissioning Group Updates

·       Healthwatch Wiltshire Update

Note: Speakers are reminded that they each have a 3 minutes slot, unless they have previously discussed alternative arrangements with the Community Area Manager.

The Board noted the written updates attached to the agenda and circulated at the meeting. The following verbal updates were received:

Police – Inspector Pete Sparrow & John Hutchings

A written report was circulated at the meeting.

·       The Salisbury Officers had been set a challenge to be as visible as possible, as so many times people say that Police Officers are nowhere to be seen. The challenge Pete set his Officers was, who could be the most visible this month? For short 20 minute bursts, all officers available would be out on the streets for all to see.

·       On Monday Officers went to Wilton, with 7 patrolling the shopping village. This made a visible statement. We are out there and we do care. This action acts as a deterrent.

·       We do lots to tackle crime and we still live in a very safe area.

·       On target for response times for the Wilton area.

·       This time of the year is the peak time for rural crime, such as hare coursing. We need the community to report incidents.

Questions:

·       Q – why was rural poaching your number one crime? Answer: The old traditional image of one for the pot is far off the mark. Rural offences taking place now were not purely people poaching for their own pot, there were huge gambling implications with competitions to see who could catch the most. It was a profit-making act. Associated offences create the need for us to tackle this.

Fire – James Toomey, Station Commander at Wilton.

·       The Fire Service had started a ‘Be one of us’ campaign to increase the numbers of Officers from other areas of the community.

·       We attend other incidents in bigger areas, which are not included in these statistics for our community area.

·       We need help to recruit more Officers to be trained. We have had very little success in attracting new recruits.

·       Promoting Safe and Well visits.

Questions:

·       Q – The number of false alarms was quite alarming, why was it so high? Answer: We don’t get too many, these can be caused by burnt toast setting the domestic alarm off and some building alarms going off faulty.

·       Q – It was good to see in Wilton that the daytime figures had increased, but Tisbury’s daytime cover was still low. Answer: Tisbury did not have enough people available through the day. They were desperate for people. Lots of employers did not have spare staff and could not release their staff to provide cover. In Wilton we rely on shift workers and the self-employed.

·       Q – The Fire service was looking at a new pay structure which may increase interest. – Answer: Wilton was one of the first to go on the pilot scheme, working on salary scheme instead of the old way of pay as you go. This had been very successful there.

·       Q – The Co-responding service in Mere was useful, but we should be given the code to access the defibrillators rather than have to call up for it.  Answer: – The Wilton station no longer Co-responded. It was trialled, but found that we were chasing the ambulance all of the time. Wilton’s defibrillator had a different system where they do not have to wait for a code.

·       Q – In Swallowcliff the users of the defibrillator service were told that the ambulance service would not release the code out to anyone over 500m away from the box. So they had put the code on the box.

Action: CEM to liaise with the Board Members discus the various issues around the different defibrillator systems in use across the community areas, to see if any action was required.

Wilton Update – On 1^st Jan the first draft of the Atkins Study for Wilton Parkway would be available.