Hello,
It's another busy week with the summer activities programme arranged with Saints in the Community. Activities including football, tag-rugby, streetdance, cricket, music and more have been going ahead and most days over 50 children are involved. It has been going really well, and luckily the weather has been OK to hold the events outside.
An interesting item this week was the Hampshire Constabulary firearms presentation called FAKE - Firearms and Knife Education. This went down really well with the children and is an excellent presenation in the current climate. You may have heard of the chief constable's anti-social behaviour initiative over the summer. Well as part of the initiative we have had quite a few staff from headquarters coming down to assist with the activities as well. It's good for them to get out of their offices, and good for us because we can show off our community work to our the constabulary colleagues.
As part of the ASB campaign we organisied another Hoglands Gazebo event for Thursday and three members of police staff from different areas of the county came to help. As usual with the events, we were talking to park users about crime awareness and prevention, mobile and bike security marking and generally offering advice. We think this works towards reducing crime in Hoglands Park and again this year we have not had too much crime reported - the summer used to be horrendous.
Have any of you seen the stadium footbridge from Northam Road to St Mary's stadium in the last week or two? The street art project is going really welll and the artists are doing a fantastic job smartening up the bridge. Again, this is part of the summer activities programme and the children initally canvassed for ideas and came up with the plans. It will still take a couple of weeks to finish but is looking pretty impressive already. I just hope nobody spoils it before we get the anti-graffiti paint on. Thanks to everyone involved.
PC Phil Warwick has been out and about in the Peel Street area with council highways staff regarding the obstructions caused by some of the vehicles in the area. Unfortunately some businesses are blocking areas for others and there have been a few complaints - again a case of too many vehicles and not enough space. Hopefully the council are looking at putting in a few double yellow lines on the corners to help reduce the problem.
We are now busy planning the Junior PCSO events for the coming term. There are four schemes now - Lumpy Lane, Deanery, Chapel and Holyrood. It takes the PCSOs quite a bit of time putting their programmes together and we have a few visits arranged. We are planning to so something with Swaythling Housing Association to celebrate Black History Month in October and have some funding to take 20 of the juniors to Fairthorne Manor for a day of activities. We have been approached by Thames Valley Police, the Met and Sussex Police about the Junior PCSO schemes and some of their areas are looking at introducing them.
Of course next month the students return, so we are also planning a variety of operations and events to 'educate' students both about being a victim of crime and being involved in crime. There is naturally a lot of anti-social behaviour reported when the new students come in - first time away from Mum and Dad etc and that is particularly prevelant on the Deanery to Chapel footbridge. We will have a few weekend alcohol confiscation operations there. The students also fall victims to crime, staying out late, walking home by themselves after drinking, rooms full of laptops etc. so there is an education and crime awareness side to the operations. We will have stalls at the Freshers Fairs and have police surgeries at the halls of residences and City College to offer advice.
Plenty to keep us going! See you soon,
Dick
Friday, 21 August 2009
Monday, 17 August 2009
Back!
Back again,
I am back from my three weeks' leave so time for an update. As you are asking - yes very nice leave thanks, five days in Scotland and went up Ben Nevis, then two weeks in Canada visiting my son and his family. Great fun with the three grandchildren. I mentioned about the blog and my daughter-in-laws comment was to tell me to stop introducing the blog as 'Hello again' and try something different, hence I used back again at the start of this one. But at least I can confirm that the blog is being read as far away as Canada!
Well I came back to the expected 350+ emails and time to catch up on the crimes for the patch. Vehicle crime has increased slightly - up to 20 for the rolling month for Northam, Newtown and St Marys. A few months ago we went up to 50+ for the rolling month, so we are looking at what we can do to reduce the figures again. There was one recently at Northam Community Centre, where the improved CCTV showed it's worth when there was evidence on the CCTV system, so hopefully this will further help reduce incidents around the community centre.
We are into the school summer holidays, and as yet no increase in reports of anti-social behaviour on the patch. This is in line with recent holiday periods for us, and as with last year we have the summer activities running daily at St Marys School field with Jazz Bhatti and the Saints in the Community. The programme is even bigger than last year with activities from 10am to 3pm. Just hope for decent weather! Activities include football, tag rugby, dance, arts and craft, basketball and plenty of others.
For those of you who use the footbridge from Northam Road to the stadium you will also notice that the painting we started last year is getting finished this year. We got as far as the Saints stripes last year, but this time have everything in place to complete the rest of the bridge. The local youngsters have canvassed residents and bridge users to see what they wanted on the bridge. The results are Saints related stuff at that end of the bridge and Southampton history at the Northam Rd end. The youth leaders from Baseline and City Reach have been overseeing the project and painting has started. It should look really good.
As mentioned on the last blog, PC Steve Mckenzie has moved on the City centre Unit and his replacement has been identified as PC Sharon Conway from Bitterne and she joins us on 3 September. We welcome Sharon and she will be out and about in St Marys as soon as she arrives. PCSO Fiona Oates has resigned, to go to University, so she will be leaving in September and I have to ask for a replacement. Finally, and probably most importantly, my Inspector - Chris Kirby, is leaving after over 30 years service, so it will be a change above as well. It never stands still here.
As ever there were meetings during my first week back. I had the Community Tasking and Co-ordinating Group and the Northam Patch Chat. No great new issues at either meeting. I have had a reminder from a resident in St Marys about cyclists on the pavement again, so will get the PCSOs to up the enforcement again. Other than that, touch wood, things are not too bad - unless you know different, and if you do, please let me know!
Cheers
Dick
I am back from my three weeks' leave so time for an update. As you are asking - yes very nice leave thanks, five days in Scotland and went up Ben Nevis, then two weeks in Canada visiting my son and his family. Great fun with the three grandchildren. I mentioned about the blog and my daughter-in-laws comment was to tell me to stop introducing the blog as 'Hello again' and try something different, hence I used back again at the start of this one. But at least I can confirm that the blog is being read as far away as Canada!
Well I came back to the expected 350+ emails and time to catch up on the crimes for the patch. Vehicle crime has increased slightly - up to 20 for the rolling month for Northam, Newtown and St Marys. A few months ago we went up to 50+ for the rolling month, so we are looking at what we can do to reduce the figures again. There was one recently at Northam Community Centre, where the improved CCTV showed it's worth when there was evidence on the CCTV system, so hopefully this will further help reduce incidents around the community centre.
We are into the school summer holidays, and as yet no increase in reports of anti-social behaviour on the patch. This is in line with recent holiday periods for us, and as with last year we have the summer activities running daily at St Marys School field with Jazz Bhatti and the Saints in the Community. The programme is even bigger than last year with activities from 10am to 3pm. Just hope for decent weather! Activities include football, tag rugby, dance, arts and craft, basketball and plenty of others.
For those of you who use the footbridge from Northam Road to the stadium you will also notice that the painting we started last year is getting finished this year. We got as far as the Saints stripes last year, but this time have everything in place to complete the rest of the bridge. The local youngsters have canvassed residents and bridge users to see what they wanted on the bridge. The results are Saints related stuff at that end of the bridge and Southampton history at the Northam Rd end. The youth leaders from Baseline and City Reach have been overseeing the project and painting has started. It should look really good.
As mentioned on the last blog, PC Steve Mckenzie has moved on the City centre Unit and his replacement has been identified as PC Sharon Conway from Bitterne and she joins us on 3 September. We welcome Sharon and she will be out and about in St Marys as soon as she arrives. PCSO Fiona Oates has resigned, to go to University, so she will be leaving in September and I have to ask for a replacement. Finally, and probably most importantly, my Inspector - Chris Kirby, is leaving after over 30 years service, so it will be a change above as well. It never stands still here.
As ever there were meetings during my first week back. I had the Community Tasking and Co-ordinating Group and the Northam Patch Chat. No great new issues at either meeting. I have had a reminder from a resident in St Marys about cyclists on the pavement again, so will get the PCSOs to up the enforcement again. Other than that, touch wood, things are not too bad - unless you know different, and if you do, please let me know!
Cheers
Dick
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