Looking good for the summer

Hello,

Well Friday was the last day of the summer activities that we have been working on with 'Saints in the Community'. I went down there with one of our media team - Gaetana - so that she could do some publicity for our constabulary newspaper 'Frontline'. Gaetana, whose last day it was before she moves to a new role at headquarters, and has been really good for the few months she was with us, was really impressed with the children and what was happening.

There were over 60 children doing 'mini-olympics' on Friday. As usual we had two PCSOs - David Wright and Dan Morant - down there, and also two police staff completing their ASB day. As luck would have it, the prizegiving which was supposed to be on Saturday, was brought forward to Friday. This was because we had two Saints players doing the presentation. It was really good to have Dean Hammond and Neil Trotman presenting the trophies to the children. This year we had over 200 children register for the activities with about 50-60 turning up each day. Friday was the final tournament and BBQ.

Staffwise, I have PC Sharon Conway starting next week for St Marys. However now we are back to full strength, I now find that PC Phil Warwick will be moving to Eastleigh in October so we will have a vacancy in Northam. The hunt will be on for a replacement! PCSO Fiona Oates only has two duties left, and her replacement will be on the next PCSO course which starts in November. Finally, Wednesday will be the last day for my Inspector, Chris Kirby. He is retiring after 30 years service and I wish him all the best and thank him for all the support he has given me and team over the last 7 years that I have worked with him. Good luck Chris.

We had the Kingsland Patch Chat on Tuesday and unfortunately drug dealing has raised its ugly head in the area again, particulary around the rear of the Community Centre, the underpass and the railway footbridge on North Front. We are lucky now that there are plenty of residents who are willing to tell us when things are happening, and therefore able to respond to them quicker. PC Caroline Woodfield will take the lead on the problem and is preparing an action plan and we will be completing some operations to try and reduce the problem again. Drug dealing is so fluid nowadays, with dealers and users making arrangements by mobile phone they can change areas very quickly. Hopefully we will move them, or if we are lucky we may even be able to catch some. Otherwise evryone was happy policewise. It was pleasing to hear comments that the summer has been quiet regarding youth nuisance - something to do with the summer activity programme, amongst other things, I hope.

Today is the Golden Grove patch chat so we can wait and see how the summer has been over there. Other meetings next week will be the Albion Towers Reidents Group and the Kingsland residents group. It all sounds like 'power to the people'.

On with the Chief Constable's Anti Social Behaviour campaign and we have had some of the police staff from the station delivering the monthly newsletters around Northam and St Marys for us. They were going to get some questionnaires done as well but ran out of time. The staff were actually some of our analysts, who wade through all the information and statistics that are generated to provide reports on what crime is happening where and when etc, so it was interesting for them to go out the streets and areas that they complete the reports on. We have more staff planned for helping us as part of this campaign up until the end of September.

One final thing that we have been doing over the summer is that all the team have had a one day attachment with Hampshire Fire and Rescue service,based at St Marys. Some have been lucky, or unlucky which way you look at it, to go out on calls with the tenders and others have had to put up with a days training if no calls. We will be planning to host the firefighters with us soon. This will hopefully improve the understanding of each others roles and help at incidents.

Well, that’s it for now.

Cheers

Dick