a) Parish Councils and Community groups
b) Community Policing – local issues and priorities
Minutes:
There were no updates from Parish Council or Community groups.
Community Policing – local issues and priorities
Inspector Pete Sparrow was in attendance and circulated an update at the meeting. A copy of that update is attached to these minutes.
In addition, Inspector Sparrow gave the following update:
· The first major incident, of the heavy snow fall was followed straight after by a second incident. During the snow, the community came out and helped others in need of assistance.
· The second incident was an unprecedented one, which led to a massive logistical task for staff. He thanked the community for the outpouring of support for the well wishes to those affected and the offers of drinks for the Officers on duty at the cordons.
· Wiltshire was a safe place, the support of the wider emergency services had been pushed to the limit, however it had still been business as usual, with the usual services being maintained. The Police were now moving from crime scenes towards the lengthy clean up phase and the 4 people who were physically affected were all showing positive signs of recovery
· Last week the crime statistics for 2017 were published. Locally, up to the end of march, all crime has risen by 3%, in the Southern area, it had gone up 4%. Burglary had gone down by 16%. Whilst robbery had gone down by 100% as there had not been any this year. This was down to the amount of work on dealing with class A drug abuse.
· Cycle theft had gone up 65% across the south. We will be working to tackle that.
· South Wiltshire CPT had also joined forces with the local Community Speed Watches (CSW). Having access to the data collected by these volunteers, we can better prioritize directing our Officers to the areas where they should be conducting speed enforcement. There was an opportunity for the various Area Boards to set up and support more CSW programs. I will commit that South Wilts CPT will attend the top 3 locations based on collected speed data and 1 further location that is rotated to allow us to attend all CSWs over the year. Not only is this a great way to support another volunteer sector, it is also an opportunity to demonstrate that our officers are getting out in their areas.
The Chairman added that the work done by emergency services was generally good to see and greatly appreciated and valued by the public.
Questions and comments received:
· Cllr Devine noted that in previous years, when there had been incidents in his ward, he had received a call from the Police to inform him. However, during the recent emergency, which had been run by the Met Counterterrorism Command, he had not been made aware when they came to do a closedown in Winterslow. Answer: There is always the opportunity for you to call us, the conversation can go both ways. This was the first time an incident like this had happened, and quick decisions had to be made. There was an awful lot going on where we had to listen to a lot of advice from several agencies at a high level.
· Cllr Devine noted that in his areas, there are some rat runs, and there were no Speed watch groups, so it would also be nice to have patrols in those areas. Answer: The idea of following speed watch, is so we can follow data already set. If there are areas that could benefit from CSW then I would urge those parishes to set one up.