Northam Community Priorities changed...

Hello,

After the fun of the summer holidays it's back to school for the children and normal business resumed for us. Actually, our statistics show that reports of criminal damage and vehicle crime in Northam and St Marys dropped in August. This is great news for us, now we have to try to keep those figures down.

On Monday, September 7, we had the second Northam police and public meeting where we identify and discuss the problems in the community and come up with the three community priorities. It was agreed that the prostitution problem and the drug issues have been reduced over the last two months to such an extent that these priorities were removed. A major factor was considered to be the joint visits made by the police and housing staff together to a few 'problem' addresses. It was decided to retain youth nuisance as a priority, but only just. The two new concerns that were raised, and agreed as priorities, were people ignoring the no left turn from Princes Street onto Northam and vehicle crime, particularly breaking into taxis. The no left turn issue has been raised before, and there have been improvements to the crossing, however, as often, the problem is returning. We will get out there with our fixed penalty notices and get some enforcement done. Vehicle crime is relatively low in Northam, however there have been some taxis targeted recently. We will check vehicles for items left on display, and if there are we will inform the owners either by letter by calling at the address. We have asked the council licensing department for taxis to remind all companies about leaving items on display.

Another meeting was an update on the football cage in James Street, which we can hopefully relocate to St Marys school field. We have an agreement in principle and there are now a variety of people trying to move this forward. Another meeting I have just found out about is the St Marys Traders Association which is getting going again. We will attend the meetings and support this group.

The Junior PCSO schemes are starting up again this week, so plenty to keep the PCSOs busy. We have gained some funding to take 20 of them to Fairthorne Manor in October so are busy planning for that. The PCSOs are also busy organising the police surgeries for City College and the Halls of Residence. We hold surgeries during the first weeks that students come in to help educate them about personal safety and to remind them that they can actually be quite a nuisance with their behaviour, particularly in the evening when they have been up to town.

Some good news is that the drugs issues in Kingsland seem to be reducing. We have been spending a lot of time patrolling estate and I spoke to several residents today who said there are less users and dealers around. So we will keep patrolling and hopefully move them on.

Other than that it's not too bad, unless you know different, and if you do, please let us know

Cheers

Dick