a) Grants Showcase – Update from James Dwyer, Funding Manager at God Unlimited (GUL): Outdoor therapy – expansion of services
b) Community Policing – local issues and priorities
In attendance: Inspector Pete Sparrow/PC Matt Holland
c) Community Engagement Manager Updates:
· Great British Spring Clean (GBSC) 2020 litter picking initiative
· Community Payback
· Smartwater Pilot scheme
· Eco-friendly villages project update
Minutes:
Grants Showcase
The Board received an update from previous grant applicant, James Dwyer, from GUL (God Unlimited).
GUL had been awarded £5,000 towards an expansion of services at their outdoor therapy centre which was based in Shrewton. The centre provides outdoor activities for young adults with learning difficulties, which come to them via referrals from 50 schools across the county.
Staff work with these young people who are struggling for a variety of reasons and provide activities in the outdoors.
Last year 108 users came from the Southern Wiltshire area.
User breakdown:
· 70% had mental health conditions
· 20% had physical conditions
· 10% other
The funding helped to provide a new low rope course with 15 elements. This was used for all different types of therapy and was proving to be a huge benefit and asset to the centre.
A new roof on the barn meant that there were now no leaks and it had enhanced the whole site, whilst also creating a dry corridor where they were now able to display information.
The site toilet block had also been refurbished and upgraded.
James thanked the Board for the funding and welcomed anyone that wished to visit the site to come along.
Questions:
Answer: Yes, we conduct annual surveys and collate information on everyone that comes through the site.
Answer: We are proud to have built the site from scratch ourselves.
Answer: We are based in Shrewton, opposite Appleford School.
Community Policing – local issues and priorities
Pete circulated a written report at the meeting, and made the following points:
Stop & Search – as detailed in the report, Salisbury CPT had the highest number of stop searches outside of Swindon. This was all down to county lines drug dealing. This showed the demand that it has on our resources.
Business Burglary – Teams had made an inroad here, with three significant arrests. The number of new offences had now significantly dropped.
Distraction Burglary – There had been a recent spate in incidents where people had pretended to be an electrician. Investigations took us to an individual in Bristol, when we made an arrest we found details of the addresses which had been targeted.
An event was being held on 19 March at City Hall, Salisbury – this was for anyone running a hotel or bed and breakfast, with the purpose of educating people how to identify at an early stage people who were extorting under age individuals for sex.
Questions:
· You report a success in tackling burglaries to business, has there been any increase in policing in the rural areas, as in Redlynch there have been some incidents?
Answer: We are aware of those incidents; however Redlynch had a difficulty geographically due to the time it takes to get there. We are out there and we are patrolling it.
· Was there an update on the Smartwater offer?
Inspector Sparrow had met with Cllr Britton and Karen earlier in the week to look at the costings provided by Smartwater, if the product was bought in bulk.
· Had there been many responses back from the public on the offer?
Answer: We are not at that stage yet. We are still investigating options. The initial offer was for PCs to buy in bulk and then to recover the cost as they were passed on to households. We need an organisation to deal with the mechanics. We will feed back when we have more of a proposal on how we can move this forward.
· Cllr Devine noted that there had been some dirt bike thefts in Winterslow. He felt there should be more rural patrols and would like to see a change in strategy.
Karen Linaker - Community Engagement Manager Updates:
· Great British Spring Clean (GBSC) 2020 litter picking – this year the initiative would run for a month, rather than the usual weekend. If any community group would like to run an event, let Karen know, so that she could help with the provision of some kit to help.
· Community Payback – This scheme had been operating in the south, mainly with churches. There was the potential for them to help with the Community Litter pickers this year. Get in touch with Karen for further information.
· The Smartwater Pilot scheme presented at the last Area Board was a work in progress, further updates to follow.
· Eco-friendly villages project update – This was moving along in our community area and Rosie Wilkinson had started work on a directory of all the things that were already happening. She would be making contact with people in due course.
· Make a Friend be a Friend Project – A project had launched in Wilton, once that was underway we would start one in the southern area.
· Downton antisocial behaviour – Karen was working with a whole set of professionals to form a community project to support some of the individuals into a positive activity.
People were then invited to take part in an interactive vote to identify the top 3 priority issues for the area. The top three were:
· 27% - Older people
· 16% - Health & Wellbeing
· 16% - Transport