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Neston Police Community Action Team - October 2009 Meeting

The latest Police Community Action Team Meeting took place at Neston Town Hall on Thursday October 2nd.

Sgt Paul Bluck welcomed attendees and thanked PC Mike Lockett for attending on his rest day and PCSO Linda Conway for changing shifts in order to attend.  He also introduced Paul Davies from Neston Community and Youth Centre, who spoke to the meeting regarding opportunities at the Centre, and Special Sergeant Stuart Wood.

Sgt Bluck's report on the last three months:

The three priorities voted for by meeting attendees in July were Drugs, Speeding and Anti-Social Behaviour. Actions taken on these issues are:

Drugs 

• Stop checks on persons and vehicles,
• Intelligence gathering (reports of persons taking cocaine quite openly in public houses),
• Awareness - visiting schools to highlight the consequences of drug issues.

Speeding

• Enforcement has been taking place in Hinderton Road, Burton, Willaston, and Liverpool Road, Neston

Anti-Social Behaviour

• Nuisance youth forms issued,
• Advice given to youths,
• Section 59 notices issued in respect of vehicles.

Sgt Bluck then went on to give a snapshot of what has been happening in the area over the last three months.

There have been a total of 734 incidents reported:

• Willaston/Childer Thornton - 170
• Neston/Little Neston - 319
• Ness/Burton - 131
• Parkgate - 114

The last three months have taken us over the school holidays - in August there was a large scale disturbance between local youths and youths from Bromborough, in Stanney FieldsPark . Twopersons were arrested after a youth was attacked with a baseball bat - enquiries are still continuing.

There was the tragic death of four young local persons in an accident on the A540. Enquiries continue.

Theft of alcohol from local shops - three youths were arrested for this and two appeared in court last week.

Break-in at the Cheshire Building society in the early hours of the morning of 22.8.09 - a safe was taken.

Antisocial behaviour - youths running in and out of church services, dog foul bins being emptied and thrown around childrens play areas, small rubbish fires being lit in the town centre near to local businesses, eggs thrown from vehicles at pedestrians , vehicle ASB on Clayhill /around the Town Centre, racist graffiti in West Vale ,drinking in open places - Church Lane, Stanneyfields Park , West Vale

A lot of our time this month has been taken up following up Crime reports i.e taking statements in respect of damage/assault and carrying out Restorative Justice (enables low level crime to be dealt with by way of an apology by the offender).

Questions or Reports raised by Meeting Attendees

Issues raised included:

• Parking congestion in cul-de-sacs /Inconsiderate parking by residents;
• Problems with groups of youths in the town centre - hanging around outside the kebab shop and Tescos in the evenings;
• Concern about travellers in the area - asking for scrap metal - Breezehill Road/Hinderton Road;
• Concern about youths throwing eggs from vehicles. Could have quite an impact on an elderly person;
• Police - concern about the low level of attendance despite CAM publicised through leaflet drop and press release.( Aware that Neston High School open evening is on the same day);
• Request for information from the public in relation to travellers requesting scrap. Namely registration numbers of vehicles and descriptions of callers.

Priorities for the next three months will remain the same - Drugs, Speeding and Anti-Social Behaviour.

The next CAT meeting will be on Thursday, 7th January 2010, 7pm at Neston Town Hall.

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Comments

stan e

At 18:51 on 4th October 2009, stan e commented:

quite a lot of concerns raised at theNeston Police Community Action Team - October 2009 Meeting-i myself being an old fogey-would love to inspire some individual to set up an amateur boxing club in neston-its been done in other towns and villages on the wirral-and i think a lot of our frustrated youth would relish the chance to take there frustrations out in a middle of a boxing ring-rather than being anti-social,and they are behaving like that because they are bored and have nothing else to do(despite what they are told).you only have to look at the vauxhall amateur boxing club and see what they are doing with there Gloves not Gangs campaign.

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Scott Morein

At 09:37 on 16th October 2009, Scott Morein commented:

Carrie has again provided an excellent report of the meeting. I am surprised however the officer present expressed disappointment at the numbers who attended, given the lack of publicity for the event. An open evening at the school might have prevented the attendance of those with school age children attending, but there are more people in Neston without children than with.

During 2008, the meetings I was aware of had around 30 in attendance, and I think 60 or so went to the police authority gathering. Would I be correct in saying the numbers in attendance at the latest meeting was fewer than this?

As to the earlier comment, and the suggestion anti social behaviour is an expression of frustration. I challenge this sentiment. It is not an expression of frustration, but a manifestation of selfishness, poor discipline and little respect for others. There is plenty to do around the area, and many places to go. Boredom is not an explanation, but given places like the Youth & Community centre cannot have a room set aside for drinking, smoking, drug abuse and vandalism, then there will be louts, male & female, of all ages, wandering the streets, doing what they do in impunity because less than half of all incidents are actually reported to police, and officers can only attend a portion of the reported incidents.

Recently it has been brought tragically into sharp relief that anti social behaviour is serious and damaging to quality of life yet it remains a low priority when police resources are allocated and rarely the subject of criminal charges.

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