Junior PCSO DVD launch and Saints/Pompey arrests.

Hello again,

Well, quite an eventful week to report on. It all started last Saturday with the Saints v Pompey match, which unfortunately Saints lost. Although I guess Pompey have enough problems anyway. As expected, there was some trouble which resulted in arrests. However there were several people charged with offences, off to court and sentenced this week, which is very quick. Four people received 3 year football banning orders with a range of fines from £135 to £350, two people received fines of £100 and £150 and two more people pleaded not guilty and will be sent to trial. This is prompt justice and just the message that needed to go out. As far as I am aware there were very few, if any, concerns from the community.

I had a few days off, being half term, so only got back to work on Thursday and therefore missed most of the details – but had a few lovely days up in Shropshire, a bit of walking and sampling some fine ale.

Back here on Thursday and it was the launch of the Junior PCSO DVD that Swaythling Housing have funded and arranged. This was held at the harbour Lights cinema. There were representatives from the Junior PCSO schemes not only in Central, but also Mansbridge and Hythe. Quite a few of the juniors turned up and were really well behaved and we were privileged with the presence of the Chief Constable. Unfortunately the projectionist was late which disrupted the chain of events, however it went very well overall and was a success. Particular thanks go to Jade Missen of Swathing Housing, who basically arranged the whole thing, well done. There are copies of the video available for anyone who is thinking of starting up a scheme.

On Thursday afternoon we had the Kingsland Patch Chat. This is a multi agency meeting led by Housing which looks at issues within Kingsland Estate and is chaired by Helen Prophett, the local housing manager. We are very fortunate in Kingsland at the moment that there are no major issues – in fact no police issues at all. However, this does mean that we can concentrate on some of the community issues and support other agencies in Kingsland.

You may notice a comment on last weeks blog – excellent, please, please send more. Nigel has asked about some of the details of the presentation that Sgt Andy Williams and I did to the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) in London last year. The NPIA hold many seminars and workshops, and Andy and I were invited to hold workshops on our community engagement. We had 4 groups come through representing Police Forces from all around London and South East England. Much of our presentation centrered around the ways we try to engage with our communities, and the fact that the areas and needs of Northam, Newtown and St Marys vary from each other. An example was that Northam is quite easy to engage with as the main residential area is the Estate, and there is an active Residents Association. There is also only one patch chat for Northam. On the other hand, St Marys has four Residents Associations (five when Chapel is active) and three patch chats. We also have several Halls of Residence for the students. Certainly from our aspect, it is all about getting the PCs and PCSOs out in the community talking to people, identifying the concerns and doing something about those concerns. We now have the monthly Community Priority Setting Meetings for Northam and St Marys, so that gives us another way of getting that information. Andy and I also talked about the youth engagement, Junior PCSO schemes, summer activities programme with Saints and of course now we also have the tag rugby at St Marys School and Mount Pleasant School.

There has been an increase in reported burglaries this year, particularly business premises. There was actually an arrest for a burglary last night in the patch and we will be targeting those that we think are responsible. If anyone has concerns about crime prevention advice, please contact us and we can arrange for one of the team or a Crime Reduction Officer to visit.

Cheers

Dick

Out the Cup and St Marys new Priorities.

Hello again,

Well our Safer Neighbourhood football team looked splendid in the Saints kit on Wednesday evening, in the first round of the Constabulary Cup, however that’s where our comparison with Saints excellent cup run stopped. In the frozen wastes of Andover we were stuffed 6 – 0. Due to my increasing years and lack of football talent I was left to run the line until the last 10 minutes or so, when they felt sorry for the old man and let me on. A fair reflection on the difference between the teams was that our keeper, PC Paul Ground (a fellow Saga member) was probably our man of the match. Anyway, the gaffer, Sgt Andy Williams is washing the kit and handing it back to Saints who kindly loaned it to us.

Talking of Saints, firstly, congratulations on getting to Wembley, and now for the FA Cup and Pompey. Needless to say, there will plenty of police on duty for the game. Community wise, we have 3 pairs of Safer Neighbourhood Team officers completing community reassurance around Northam, Newtown and St Marys. We have visited the pubs to see what their plans are for the day. If anyone has any concerns please contact the Constabulary on 0845 045 4545 we can take any details. We will also have Sgt Andy Williams and Insp Doug Ashman on duty for community cohesion.

On Tuesday we had the first Community Priority Setting meeting for St Marys. Twelve people attended and represented Albion Towers, Golden Grove, Kingsland and Holyrood. The current problems were discussed and the new Community priorities were agreed. These are: Homeless drinkers sleeping rough in Holyrood Estate, Double parking in St Mary St and vehicle obstruction in Jonas Nichols Sq, and finally anti social behaviour related to unemployed people – particularly in Golden Grove. The latter is quite interesting as is a government project called the ‘Worklessness project’ which covers this sort of thing. If you have any thoughts on the priorities please leave a comment, it would be great to get feedback from readers.

Finally, we have recently agreed Acceptable Behaviour Contracts with two youngsters in St Marys. These are a set of rules that the children agree to in an effort to keep them out of trouble. Unfortunately one has already been broken twice – and it was only started on Monday. Never mind, we will keep trying and also get the support in for the parents.

That’s it for now, see you next week

Cheers

Dick