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