Twickenham here we come!

Hello,

Well that’s Halloween and Bonfire Night out of the way. We had extra patrols out for the week, and completed joint patrols with Hampshire Fire and Rescue, Neighbourhood Wardens and City patrol. However, everything went off very quietly. There were very few incidents reported to us, although we dealt with some students setting off fireworks one night in Hoglands park and some youngsters having a camp fire in the copse of St Marys School playing field. Overall though, it went very well.

The big event this week of course is our trip to Twickenham with the tag rugby children from St Marys and Mt Pleasant schools. We have been completing two tag sessions a week to try to get them up to scratch - will have to see what happens come Saturday! The children are really enjoying themselves with the rugby although funnily enough I saw one of the Asian parents I know at the last session on Thursday and he said 'You will never have the Asian children playing rugby!!' - well come and have a look. We have children from various ethnic backgrounds taking part, their choice not ours, boys and girls, and yes - some are Asian. I do not think any of them had heard of Twickenham before last week but it will be a really good experience for all of us and after England lost to Australia at the weekend, we can hope for a win on Saturday.

We had the Police Public meeting at Northam last week and there were a distinct lack of problems identified, which was great. Drugs were raised again, some drug dealing from the foyer of Princes House, with users driving or walking in to Princes Court car park to collect the drugs. So we will ensure that area is patrolled more and try to gain more information. The traffic enforcement of the no left turn from Princes St into Northam Rd was kept as a priority. PC Dave Houghton has monitored that in the last week again and issued another two tickets. Other than that there were no other problems for us. The residents are happy that juvenile nuisance has continued to reduce, and decided to drop that as a priority - that’s about the first time for 10-years!!

This Monday evening is the Holyrood Residents and Tenants Group. Part of the meeting will be discussing the neighbourhood Charter. This is a document where each agency agree a level of service to the Estate. Police-wise, this is basically the Policing Pledge.

Finally, my new Inspector starts this week - Insp Doug Ashman joins us from HQ where he was staff officer to ACC Nicholson. Insp Ashman wasted no time in getting onto the streets and went out yesterday afternoon with PC Denton and a few others to St Mary St, where she has been arranging operations to target speeders, and issue tickets for any offences that are identified out there.

Finally, I have been looking through the statistics and am pleased to report that reported crime is still reducing in comparison to last year. I particularly look at Criminal damage, Vehicle crime and burglary as these offences directly affect the community. The figures are:
Vehicle crime: St Marys Oct 2008 -8.7 p/month, Oct 2009 - 7.3 p/month,
Northam Oct 2008 - 13.1 p/month Oct 2009 5.6 p/month
Damage : St Marys Oct 2008 - 16.8 p/month, Oct 2009 - 14.4 p/month,
Northam Oct 2008 - 14/9 p/month Oct 2009 9.4 p/month
Burglary : St Marys Oct 2008 - 8.2 p/month, Oct 2009 - 5.1 p/month,
Northam Oct 2008 - 7 p/month, Oct 2009 - 4.8 p/month

Long may it continue!

Cheers

Dick