Agenda item

a) Parish Councils and Community groups

b) Community Policing – local issues and priorities - In attendance, Inspector Tina Osborn.

c) Fire & Rescue

Parish Councils and Community groups

There were no updates at this meeting.

Community Policing – local issues and priorities

In addition to the written update provided as Supplement 1 to the agenda, Inspector Tina Osborn gave a verbal update, some of the main points included:

There had been a successful implementation of a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) in Downton, aimed to reduce the use of catapults. Since implementation, no further reports had been logged there for that type of offence, during the last two months.

There had been reports relating to catapult use in Laverstock and Odstock, however tis was believed to have been by a different group. Pulse Patrols were being carried out in specific areas where issues we are happening. Police would stop and speak to people believed to be connected to the offenses. Ongoing work with partners to try and identify the culprits.

During a successful late-night operation carried out in October, one individual had been arrested and sent to prison. As a result of the intelligence collected through the operation, 2 males had been arrested for a series of burglaries, and had been charged and remanded, awaiting sentence.

There had been three arrests in relation to the theft of high value motor vehicles. These individuals were currently on bail whilst the matter was investigated by CID.

Preventative work included the bike making events, which would continue around the community areas, and increased talks at schools on knife crime.  

Comments and questions:

·       Cllr Z Clewer – Thanked the Police for their work in Redlynch following a spate of rural crimes. She also urged communities to report all incidents, noted the youth version of Crime Stoppers called Fearless and the recruitment event aimed at school leavers which was due to take place later in the week.

·       Cllr R Clewer stated that if there was evidence to support a PSPO for other areas then he supported this.  

·       Downton PC – There had been recent attendance of a Police Officer to the parish meeting, however that Officer was due to retire. Would he be replaced?  

Answer: Recruitment was underway to recruit two more Officers to the Neighbourhood Police Team.

Fire & Rescue

In addition to the written update provided as Supplement 2 to the agenda, Jim Weston, Group Manager introduced himself and provided a verbal update, which included:

·       Community Safety Plan link was provided in the report

·       Prevention activity – keen to be involved with the warm spaces project and could identify people who need the assistance

·       Safe and Well visits continued to be provided, these were free visit to those who were in need to assess the need for safety features at home.

·       Expanding the Team with recruitment across the Wiltshire area, to ensure frontline services were robust and strong for communities.

·       Experiencing some difficulties due to the recent weather, however the call rate for fires had dropped.

·       There had been recent road traffic collisions which had resulted in life changing injuries and a fatality.

·       High attendance at the first open day in 15 years, this event included partners attending with many stands to engage with the community

·       A recent donation of 3 of the former appliances had been made to Gambia

·       A new campaign focused on safety measures for the winter period had been launched.

Comments and questions included:

·       What constituted a false alarm and how much resource does it use up to attend these?

Answer: False alarms do make up a large part of our calls, we work through fire safety side with businesses to drive these down and there were ongoing plans to reduce the calls by working in partnership with agencies. They can be caused by building alarm systems, fumes in premises or a variety of other reasons. We do analyse the reasons to target our work. In addition there were the occasional hoax calls.

·       How strict was the on-call requirement to need to be able to access the fire station within the time frame set?

Answer: Access to the station in previous years was set at a strict 5 minutes, however that time had been stretched to 7.5/8 minutes to ensure the right people were taken on and that appliances were fully manned. One trend identified in target failures was the traffic.