Safer Neighbourhood Meetings – No More

If you are signed up to the Derbyshire Alerts system you will have received the following message at some point yesterday :

Contacting your local police has never been easier; whether it be through the Derbyshire Constabulary website, by personal e-mail to officers, through the 101 telephone system or indeed through the Police and Crime Commissioners Office; and of course there will always be the opportunity to speak to your local officer one to one when on patrol. To make this even easier we are in the process of setting up several ‘pop-up shops’ across the area; so far we have successfully embedded these in Glossop Co-Op and New Mills Sainsbury’s and we hope to expand these into a second New Mills location and Glossop Tesco’s; as well looking for opportunities in Gamesley and Hadfield. These shops are staffed by members of the Safer Neighbourhood Team and Police Service Volunteers at advertised times through the week and give an informal avenue for members of the community to speak to their local officers about issues that are concerning them, what they would like to see more of from us and what they think we are doing well. You may have already seen these in the local press.

Also, over the summer months we have and will continue to increase our presence at public events; we have received some very positive comments from the public about how nice it has been to see us and of course these are more opportunities for us to speak with the public and for them to tell us what they want us to prioritise.

With this greater number of events and team availability allowing for more engagement with the public, it is no longer felt necessary for the Safer Neighbourhood Team to have quarterly meetings as has been the case over recent years. Unfortunately the attendance at these meetings has dwindled to such an extent where we had to find better ways of engaging with the public; hence the work we have undertaken around pop-up shops etc.

The next scheduled meetings that will no longer take place were :-

New Mills/Hayfield area – 6 August
Hadfield/Tintwistle area – 2 September
Glossop town centre – 10 September
Gamesley & St Johns area – 11 September

It is expected that this new approach will give us a much greater understanding of the issues affecting the local communities from which we can set our local policing priorities. It will also allow us to build upon the lines of communication we already have with our partners, such as High Peak Borough Council and Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service to name just two, in order to put in place plans to tackle not only short term issues but also solve long term problems.

Results of our consultations and the subsequent priorities that are set will continue to be made available on this forum (Derbyshire Alert) and as always we welcome any feedback from the community. We will also on a quarterly basis send out a community survey to give you the chance to participate in setting our priorities.

Now whilst I would agree (at least for the Gamesley and Charlesworth one) that whilst attendances have dwindled a little at recent meetings, they did still seem to be serving their purpose in terms of engaging with local residents on these issues, however I appreciate the limitations of a day time meeting and hope that the new setup will still enable local residents to feed into the setting of local policing priorities.

If you’re not on Derbyshire Alert or you’ve never heard of it, Derbyshire Alert Derbyshire Alert is a community messaging system for the whole of Derbyshire, run by Derbyshire Police.

If you’re not on it you can easily register and you can receive news and appeals, local crime information, and prevention advice to either your e-mail, telephone or as a text message from Derbyshire Police and other local agencies.

To register of find out more goto : http://www.derbyshirealert.co.uk/