Neighbourhood Policing
1 December 2007I am the Hayle Town Council police liaison and, in this role, I attended a seminar on neighbourhood policing on November 13th.
The majority of attendees were police officers from the west of Cornwall (Helston to the Isles of Scilly) with HQ officers making presentations and leading discussions. Civilian attendees were from town and parish councils, neighbourhood watch and other liaison groups. There were about 60 police officers and a dozen civilians present.Â
Central Government has tasked the police with taking a pro-active approach to neighbourhood policing and the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary has appointed an Inspector with the sole responsibility of promoting this throughout the area. It was clear from the presentations that Police HQ wants beat officers to take the issue seriously and a lot of the day was spent comparing notes on what works and what doesn’t.
One of the issues being struggled with is: how should local police priorities be determined? For example, if you asked a group at Copperhouse what their priorities were, they might be: noisy skateboarders, anti-social behaviour on the recreation ground and noise from pubs. Residents of Foundry might cite: groups of hoodies around Foundry Square; damage to boats on Penpol Terrace; and damage to motor vehicles. The Towans area might be concerned with: dog fouling; mini-motorbikes; and speeding through Phillack. So how can the police prioritise these issues and also capture those from Pathway Fields and Loggans estates? The answer appears to be: have specific meetings with residents of problem areas and also have a meeting at the Hayle Area Plan Partnership or Town Council level to gauge more general issues.
Another important issue is ‘how can the police determine when an issue has been resolved?’ The best answer to this was ‘when the group setting the priority drops it from their top three’. For example, if HTC placed Guildford Road speeding as its top issue, the local police might target this for a couple of months. If, on reviewing the results, HTC moved this off the priority list, then the issue is resolved. In this case, it is possible that HTC may determine from the results of the enforcement that a more permanent solution should be sought by contacting County Highways and our case would be strengthened from the data collected by the enforcement action. In this way we would be operating in a partnership and the burden is not entirely on the police. Once an issue is raised as a priority, however, the police will keep it on a list for periodic follow up.
On being asked if other important police issues might be overlooked because of the time spent on neighbourhood issues, some of which (like dog fouling) might not seem as important as anti-social behaviour or drug dealing, it was made clear that the police were aware of the need to time share among many responsibilities. It is more that the time spent on neighbourhood issues is focussed on what the community feels important rather than necessarily spending a much larger percentage of the time on neighbourhood policing. Our PCSOs already spend almost all of their time on neighbourhood policing and are closely in touch with problems and issues. They have the support of the Beat Managers and the rest of the force when needed.
It is clear that the police have a strong commitment to neighbourhood policing. Give me your feedback on what issues you would like looked at.
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