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
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I am enjoying reading the blog. I am glad the police and other agencies are at least prepared to debate the impact that unemployment may be having on ASB, especially on housing estates. I hope there is a genuine political will to tackle the real issues at last.
ReplyDeleteI would like to follow up something you wrote on last year’s blog. You stated that you and Sgt Williams were invited to give talks at NPIA workshops as a result of recognition of your excellent engagement with the St Marys area. I agree that policing in this area is largely a success and has been for several months, but can you summarise the main elements of this success. I hope it will inspire policing in other areas of Southampton and indeed in other areas of England and Wales. I would also be interested to know whether you have had any positive feedback from other forces as a result of this recognition and those talks.
Nigel,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the comment - I could do with a lot more. Regarding the presentation by Andy Williams and I and the NPIA I will put some information about that in my next blog which i will do later. Thanks for your positive comments.
Cheers
Dick