A weekend of nights

Happy New Year, especially to Anon - my blogs first comment - and yes its good to be back!

Well, I started writing this update very early on Saturday morning because I have been on nights. The four Safer Neighbourhood Team Sergeants at Southampton Central and the two Probationer Development Unit sergeants take it in turns to manage the Night Time Economy Operations on Friday and Saturday nights in Southampton City Centre. This weekend was my turn. We always hope for uneventful nights, but often end up with numerous prisoners and incidents throughout the city centre until three or four in the morning. My duty finishes at 6:30am after collating all the results and checking files for all the prisoners. It can get very hectic, with many disturbances as alcohol gets the better of some revellers. Some evenings the cells fill up very quickly here at Southampton, and we send prisoners off to Lyndhurst, Fareham and sometimes as far as Aldershot.

However, tonight has been really good for us - but not so good for the owners of the night time venues! It’s the first weekend after Christmas and the New Year and it seems very few people have any money left! The city centre was empty compared to most weekends, and some venues closed early. Its also been very cold, not nice for us, but of course the revellers never seem to feel the cold! We had one arrest, quite early at 9.30pm, for drunk and disorderly. That person will get a free nights B&B and be sorted out during the morning.

Of course doing this operation means I do not see my team for a few days, but I still have all their work to manage. We are preparing Anti-Social Behavior Order (ASBO) paperwork for one youth, and this takes a couple of days to prepare and ensure the paperwork is suitable for the council lawyers to take to a confernce with a whole host of agencies to get the agreement to go to court to apply for the ASBO.

We are continually getting information about drugs activity within St Marys. Drug warrants have recently been completed in Holyrood estate and Golden Grove area, and we will continue to work on intelligence that is passed to us and patrol the areas that are highlighted.

We have 2 new PCSOs, David Wright and Fiona Oates. They will both patrol St Marys and are currently having their 5 weeks of tutoring by PCSOs Mark Reynolds and Ed Wiggans. The PCSOs are enforcing the 'no cycling on pavements' laws in Northam Rd, St Mary St and Six Dials.

Check out the web pages for Northam and St Marys to see the rest of the work we are currently engaged in and the community priorities.


St Mary's

Northam


Finally, I want the blog to work and engage the people of Northam and St Marys, those who live there and those who work or have any other interest here. Please contribute to the blog, what are your concerns, where we can improve and even let me know what we are doing well (hopefully).

Till next time……

Cheers

Dick