Well, we had the Stadium Monitoring Group meeting at St Marys last Wednesday, and it was very interesting. Good to Saints are in healthy position now, and noticeable that they are one of a very few teams who are actually buying players at the moment. There are obviously a lot of arrangements being made towards the FA Cup against Portsmouth. We have been visiting pubs in the area to see what their plans are and speaking to people in the community to identify any concerns. We had thought of having a Community Advice Group to meet and discuss issues, but most people feel that there is no need, and that as long as the key members in the community have police contact, then that will be fine. If you have any concerns or worries, or indeed hear of anything that you think the police may be interested in regarding the match, please let us know.
We have been suffering a small amount of youth nuisance recently in St Marys. On Friday evening there was a report of a group being a nuisance in James St and the team got down there and found them. The kids were all spoken to, and some taken home. W will be sending letters to the parents. I keep a copy and we share this information with the Safer Communities team from the Council and also inform Housing or the social landlord if applicable. This is because it is in the tenancy agreement that people should behave in the local area, and the parents, as tenants would be responsible for the actions of their children. This generally works very well, and we support the kids and parents as much as we can. As it happens, we agreed our first Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC) for about a year with a child on Friday. The lad has come to our notice a few times, and has also been arrested. The idea of the ABC is to agree a code of conduct, a few rules, for the child. The agreement is generally with the police, housing provider, child and parent. They seem to work quite well. It lasts for 6 months but can be reviewed at any time. We will have another 2 to do in the next week or so.
This coming week we have the Northam tenants and Residents association meeting, the Kingsland Resident meeting and I am planning for the first St Marys Community Priority Setting meeting on 9 February at Central Hall. I have had several people volunteer to be part of the Community Priority Panel, so fingers crossed it will all go OK.
Well, back to the planning for 13 February…..
Cheers
Dick
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Monday, 25 January 2010
Saints draw Pompey in the FA Cup
Hello,
Well this is the big news of the week – Saints v Pompey again, and over Valentines weekend too! As it happens, that is the weekend of the Chinese New Year aswell. Obviously with having St Marys Stadium on our patch this game will have some impact on us. I can remember the last time we played Pompey at St Marys, and the Safer Neighbourhood Team were all involved in community patrols all afternoon. As then, I expect the Constabulary will gain some of those impressive police horses to escort the Pompey fans from and back to the train station. I also have the Stadium Monitoring Group meeting this week, so that will be interesting and this game will obviously raise some issues at that meeting. Since the club got took over last year, these meetings have been really positive and long may that continue. The meeting is attended by community representatives from Northam, Newtown, St Marys, Woolston and Bitterne as well as councillors and council representatives for transport and community cohesion. It is an interesting meeting and gives an insight into some of the running of the club.
We work very closely with Saints in the Community – particularly with the summer activities programme that I have mentioned before and we are starting to plan for this years programme. In fact the contact with them is very useful. The Constabulary has an annual football tournament, and we as the Southampton Central Safer Neighbourhood Teams have entered a team, and Saints have kindly lent us an old kit – hopefully their luck in the recent cup competitions will rub off on us!! We are away to Basingstoke.
As I mentioned in the last blog – I will talk a little more about the community priorities – and this time it’s Northam.
Priority 1 is the enforcement of the no left/no right turn at the Prince of Wales junction. There have been several accidents here over the years as traffic illegally comes from Union Rd or Princes St into Northam Rd towards the City Centre. There is little we can do, other than enforce the law – so PC Dave Houghton spends some time there every day, and has issued over 30 tickets since November.
Priority 2 is vehicles travelling the wrong way around Kent St. This is mainly from the parking area in front of Clyde House around to Graham St. Again, this is an enforcement only thing really – people know they are breaking the law and Dave will be targeting them aswell. However, unlike the Prince of Wales junction where offenders do not see Dave until they have committed the offence, in Kent St they will probably see him first, and therefore go around Kent St properly.
Priority 3 is dog mess on the estate. This priority has been passed to the Council to deal with. As it happens, dogs in flats has been one of the issues on the patch chat for some time, so the council are working on this already.
The priorities will be discussed at the next Tenants and Residents meeting on 1 February and then we have the full community priority setting meeting on 2 March. If you would like to be part of this process, and influence what happens in Northam please let me know and come along to the meetings.
Well, that’s it till next time
Cheers
Dick
Well this is the big news of the week – Saints v Pompey again, and over Valentines weekend too! As it happens, that is the weekend of the Chinese New Year aswell. Obviously with having St Marys Stadium on our patch this game will have some impact on us. I can remember the last time we played Pompey at St Marys, and the Safer Neighbourhood Team were all involved in community patrols all afternoon. As then, I expect the Constabulary will gain some of those impressive police horses to escort the Pompey fans from and back to the train station. I also have the Stadium Monitoring Group meeting this week, so that will be interesting and this game will obviously raise some issues at that meeting. Since the club got took over last year, these meetings have been really positive and long may that continue. The meeting is attended by community representatives from Northam, Newtown, St Marys, Woolston and Bitterne as well as councillors and council representatives for transport and community cohesion. It is an interesting meeting and gives an insight into some of the running of the club.
We work very closely with Saints in the Community – particularly with the summer activities programme that I have mentioned before and we are starting to plan for this years programme. In fact the contact with them is very useful. The Constabulary has an annual football tournament, and we as the Southampton Central Safer Neighbourhood Teams have entered a team, and Saints have kindly lent us an old kit – hopefully their luck in the recent cup competitions will rub off on us!! We are away to Basingstoke.
As I mentioned in the last blog – I will talk a little more about the community priorities – and this time it’s Northam.
Priority 1 is the enforcement of the no left/no right turn at the Prince of Wales junction. There have been several accidents here over the years as traffic illegally comes from Union Rd or Princes St into Northam Rd towards the City Centre. There is little we can do, other than enforce the law – so PC Dave Houghton spends some time there every day, and has issued over 30 tickets since November.
Priority 2 is vehicles travelling the wrong way around Kent St. This is mainly from the parking area in front of Clyde House around to Graham St. Again, this is an enforcement only thing really – people know they are breaking the law and Dave will be targeting them aswell. However, unlike the Prince of Wales junction where offenders do not see Dave until they have committed the offence, in Kent St they will probably see him first, and therefore go around Kent St properly.
Priority 3 is dog mess on the estate. This priority has been passed to the Council to deal with. As it happens, dogs in flats has been one of the issues on the patch chat for some time, so the council are working on this already.
The priorities will be discussed at the next Tenants and Residents meeting on 1 February and then we have the full community priority setting meeting on 2 March. If you would like to be part of this process, and influence what happens in Northam please let me know and come along to the meetings.
Well, that’s it till next time
Cheers
Dick
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Visitors from Brazil and comments please
Hello again,
Well some brilliant news this week. Media have completed some analysis of the blog for December and found that there were 54 visits to the blog with 34 of them being repeat visitors. It was interesting that there were 3 visits from Brazil with one visit from each of Alaska, America, Germany and Bulgaria. The challenge I have is to get people to make comments and respond to the blog, or tell me why they do not make comments – is it because they have to register with blogspot? If that is the case, then people can email me and we can still get the comment put on. Anyway, I would be really grateful if you could tell me of anything I can put on the blog that would make you, and others respond and submit comments. One suggestion was to mention more about the Community Priorities and what we are doing about them, so I will start this week.
The first Community Priority for St Marys is Anti Social Behaviour on the footbridge from Deanery to Chapel. We have identified this as student related – mostly students form Lucia Foster halls on their way in and out of town on an evening. We have completed some late night operations and confiscated alcohol from students, and this is something we need to do again. We generally do it after students have returned from holidays. PCSO Mike Kesslar-Lyne has also arranged some police surgeries at each of the halls of Residence on our patch for the week beginning 25 January for students to discuss any issues with us.
The second community priority is anti social behaviour on ST Marys School playing field. There were reports of fires, general damage, drinking and dog fouling. We started doing extra patrols of the playing field, and particularly the copse area. A couple of youngsters were identified as causing some of the small fires, and they have been referred to the Fire Service for fire-setting courses. Some children being a nuisance were identified by PCSO Kelly Drodge and she arranged for them to attend the playing fields one Saturday morning and they did a clean up session. PCSO Dave Wright identified a dog walker and we have spoken to him. The reports have reduced and the site manager is much happier.
The third priority is cycling on the pavement, particularly St Mary St and Chapel Rd. We have completed several operations, issuing fixed penalty notices to offenders, and will continue to do these regularly. Back in October we also did an initiative with the council of stopping cyclists, advising them of road safety and issuing fluorescent bag covers.
As I write this, I am at the end of my nights’ weekend again, covering the night time economy within the city centre. It is almost six o’clock on Sunday morning. Due to Xmas and the credit crunch, weekends are not so busy at the moment, but we still managed 7 prisoners last night, and it kept us going. I have the files from the officers to check and then I should be off myself in about half an hour.
Well, that will be it for now, please send in a few comments or emails -including any questions, to hamwic.snt@hampshire.pnn.police.uk and let me know if there is anything you would particularly like me to include in the blog.
Cheers
Dick
Well some brilliant news this week. Media have completed some analysis of the blog for December and found that there were 54 visits to the blog with 34 of them being repeat visitors. It was interesting that there were 3 visits from Brazil with one visit from each of Alaska, America, Germany and Bulgaria. The challenge I have is to get people to make comments and respond to the blog, or tell me why they do not make comments – is it because they have to register with blogspot? If that is the case, then people can email me and we can still get the comment put on. Anyway, I would be really grateful if you could tell me of anything I can put on the blog that would make you, and others respond and submit comments. One suggestion was to mention more about the Community Priorities and what we are doing about them, so I will start this week.
The first Community Priority for St Marys is Anti Social Behaviour on the footbridge from Deanery to Chapel. We have identified this as student related – mostly students form Lucia Foster halls on their way in and out of town on an evening. We have completed some late night operations and confiscated alcohol from students, and this is something we need to do again. We generally do it after students have returned from holidays. PCSO Mike Kesslar-Lyne has also arranged some police surgeries at each of the halls of Residence on our patch for the week beginning 25 January for students to discuss any issues with us.
The second community priority is anti social behaviour on ST Marys School playing field. There were reports of fires, general damage, drinking and dog fouling. We started doing extra patrols of the playing field, and particularly the copse area. A couple of youngsters were identified as causing some of the small fires, and they have been referred to the Fire Service for fire-setting courses. Some children being a nuisance were identified by PCSO Kelly Drodge and she arranged for them to attend the playing fields one Saturday morning and they did a clean up session. PCSO Dave Wright identified a dog walker and we have spoken to him. The reports have reduced and the site manager is much happier.
The third priority is cycling on the pavement, particularly St Mary St and Chapel Rd. We have completed several operations, issuing fixed penalty notices to offenders, and will continue to do these regularly. Back in October we also did an initiative with the council of stopping cyclists, advising them of road safety and issuing fluorescent bag covers.
As I write this, I am at the end of my nights’ weekend again, covering the night time economy within the city centre. It is almost six o’clock on Sunday morning. Due to Xmas and the credit crunch, weekends are not so busy at the moment, but we still managed 7 prisoners last night, and it kept us going. I have the files from the officers to check and then I should be off myself in about half an hour.
Well, that will be it for now, please send in a few comments or emails -including any questions, to hamwic.snt@hampshire.pnn.police.uk and let me know if there is anything you would particularly like me to include in the blog.
Cheers
Dick
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Happy New Year and community priorities in Northam
Well, Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you all had a good Christmas. Several of us were on duty for New Years Eve for the City Centre operation, duty time was 8-5, which initially I thought was not too bad - but then found out is was 8pm to 5am New Years Day! As you can imagine it was a busy night, in fact every cell in Hampshire was filled that night. I had 5 officers to look after the bottom end of town - the High St down to Town Quay and up the St Mary St - St Marys Rd spine. Generally speaking we were not too bad, but Wahoo in the High St was at capacity with a huge queue outside in the freezing weather. The Section 27 direction to leave the area legislation was used quite a bit, ensuring some potential troublemakers were removed from the city centre before they were a real nuisance. Anyway, onwards and upwards and look forward to next year!
On Monday evening we held the Northam Community Priority Setting meeting. This was held in the Northam Tenants and Residents Office and we had a good number of people attend, including Councillors Derek Burke and Stephen Barnes-Andrews. I am really grateful for their support and that of the Housing officer and neighbourhood wardens. It was decided to drop drugs issues as a priority, the illegal left and right turning at the Prince of Wales junction was retained as a priority, and the other two priorities that were added were vehicles driving the wrong way around Kent St and dog mess on the estate. Fortunately the latter can be passed directly to the Council - but these meetings really identify the concerns of the residents and generally speaking it’s the quality of life issues that are highlighted. Once PC Dave Houghton gets back from leave he can start enforcing the traffic offences, in November and December he issued over 20 £30 tickets for the offences at the Prince of Wales junction.
We have planned a similar meeting for St Marys, and that will be held at Central Hall, St Mary St on 9 February from 6pm - 8pm. I am currently collating the names of volunteers who would like to be part of the Community Priority Panel, who will get together after the meeting to decide how we will progress with the three issues that were identifyied as the Community Priorities.
Next week we will start up the Junior PCSO schemes and tag rugby again, I hope for better weather! With the tag rugby we are planning to increase the delivery to more than St Marys school. Hopefully, we can do sessions at the youth clubs in Northam and St Marys which will provide a interest for holiday sessions, probably in the Easter School Holidays. Hampshire Rugby Football Union (RFU) have submitted funding applications and are working with us and supporting the programme.
We have reviewed the crime figures for Northam and St Marys for the last year, and the reductions have been really good, the problem now will be trying to keep them that low. For St Marys there has been a reduction of over 20% for vehicle crime, burglary and criminal damage which is great. Northam has shown even greater reductions, vehicle crime down from 157 to 62, criminal damage down from 179 to 104 and burglary down from 84 to 58. A check of those who spent time in custody during 2009 clearly shows who had been actively involved in crime in 2008, so it's a challenge for us to put them back there - or get them to change their ways for 2010.
Well that’s it for now, have a good New Year
Cheers
Dick
On Monday evening we held the Northam Community Priority Setting meeting. This was held in the Northam Tenants and Residents Office and we had a good number of people attend, including Councillors Derek Burke and Stephen Barnes-Andrews. I am really grateful for their support and that of the Housing officer and neighbourhood wardens. It was decided to drop drugs issues as a priority, the illegal left and right turning at the Prince of Wales junction was retained as a priority, and the other two priorities that were added were vehicles driving the wrong way around Kent St and dog mess on the estate. Fortunately the latter can be passed directly to the Council - but these meetings really identify the concerns of the residents and generally speaking it’s the quality of life issues that are highlighted. Once PC Dave Houghton gets back from leave he can start enforcing the traffic offences, in November and December he issued over 20 £30 tickets for the offences at the Prince of Wales junction.
We have planned a similar meeting for St Marys, and that will be held at Central Hall, St Mary St on 9 February from 6pm - 8pm. I am currently collating the names of volunteers who would like to be part of the Community Priority Panel, who will get together after the meeting to decide how we will progress with the three issues that were identifyied as the Community Priorities.
Next week we will start up the Junior PCSO schemes and tag rugby again, I hope for better weather! With the tag rugby we are planning to increase the delivery to more than St Marys school. Hopefully, we can do sessions at the youth clubs in Northam and St Marys which will provide a interest for holiday sessions, probably in the Easter School Holidays. Hampshire Rugby Football Union (RFU) have submitted funding applications and are working with us and supporting the programme.
We have reviewed the crime figures for Northam and St Marys for the last year, and the reductions have been really good, the problem now will be trying to keep them that low. For St Marys there has been a reduction of over 20% for vehicle crime, burglary and criminal damage which is great. Northam has shown even greater reductions, vehicle crime down from 157 to 62, criminal damage down from 179 to 104 and burglary down from 84 to 58. A check of those who spent time in custody during 2009 clearly shows who had been actively involved in crime in 2008, so it's a challenge for us to put them back there - or get them to change their ways for 2010.
Well that’s it for now, have a good New Year
Cheers
Dick
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