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Police ‘obstacle’ in Church Stretton citizen patrols plan
Tuesday 19th October 2010, 12:02PM BST.
Church Stretton
Plans for Police Academy-style street patrols by residents in a south Shropshire town have hit a stumbling block, the man who came up with the idea said today.
John Woolmer, who lives near Church Stretton, had suggested setting up a Streetwatch scheme to combat vandalism and anti-social behaviour in the town. But he said the police response was “disappointing”.
Mr Woolmer will now take the suggestion to local MP Philip Dunne at his constituency surgery later this week to see if he thinks the scheme could work.
He said: “I did meet with police. They said there wasn’t enough anti-social behaviour to warrant it. That’s fair enough, up to a point, but the very next day an Audi was smeared with paint costing £500 to repair.
“The disappointing thing was that they didn’t do any research and I got the impression they weren’t going to.”
Richard Ewels, a spokesman for West Mercia Police, today said: “If Mr Woolmer has had a meeting with officers to discuss his ideas, I have no further comment to make at this stage.”
Mr Woolmer said he had found the idea interesting because it had proved cost-effective in Hampshire, Surrey and Bedfordshire.
He was inspired to take action after seeing 15 instances of vandalism and anti-social behaviour affect schemes he had helped.
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Dear Community,
Street Watch is as national police initiative that empowers communities to take back ownership of their public spaces. It supports community civilian patrols under a fully regulated scheme.
There are currently 16 schemes across 3 police force areas with several other forces activelly interested.
I am the Chief Inspector and District Commander for East Hampshire, Hampshire Constabulary and we have 6 schemes operating in my area.
If anyone / including your local police, would like more information, I would be happy to assist.
You can find out more at
http://www.street-watch.org.uk
Regards
Phil Kedge
http://www.hampshire.police.uk/Internet/localpolicing/northeast/easthants/
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But some police forces support this type of idea.
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As stated some police forces promote it however what are the pcso doing???? we pay for them to do this sort of thing if they are not working may I suggest west mercia axe them when considering the cuts on wednesday.
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Chief Inspector Kedge:-
You will correct me if I am wrong but this is not “a national Police initiative”. As far as I can see it is not recommended or “enforced” by ACPO and a limited number of schemes only operate in 3 forces. Therefore, it is clearly a matter for individual chief Constables whether they permit or direct that schemes be started in their areas. West Mercia clearly has not got any of these schemes and it is understandable that officers do not know anything about them. Church Stretton is a Section Station and the officers stationed there would not be permitted of their own initiative to start one of these schemes, they are, in the eyes of a number of people very controversial and would require the Divisional Commanders or Chief Constables approval. The officer/s who were approached about this scheme were indeed, at this stage, absolutely correct in giving what seems to have been a somewhat negative response and your correct course of action would have been better to lobby ACPO, HMIC or the Chief Constable rather, than as a “foreign” officer addressing a local community and commenting on matters in another force in the local newspaper.
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Stuart makes a comment here which shows up many of the things that are wrong with local policing.
His comment appears to indicate clearly that divisional commanders and chief constables are sitting in ivory towers far away from the mean streets of Church Stretton and probably only vaguely familiar (if at all) about the situation on the ground. It lends credence to the coalition policy of introducing directly elected “sheriffs” who one hopes would take their responsibility for listening to the public more seriously than senior police officers who don’t need to show any local accountability to keep their job.
It’s s shame that Stuart also gets a bit shirty with Phil Kedge for taking time to advise of what’s happening in his local patch and for neutrally sharing information which could be useful to citizens trying to set up such schemes.
It also gratifies me to believe that rather than wasting time and effort in “lobbying ACPO (a private organisation with far too much say in policing nowadays anyway), HMIC or the Chief Constable”, (who should be aware of these types of initiatives in any case), Phil Kedge is probably spending his publicly-paid time “policing the community and protecting life and property” – as I’m sure most citizens would prefer him to be doing.
It appears on the surface that a senior police officer offering assistance and help to people who feel that they are being let down by local policing and wish to set up their own watch may be anathema to you Stuart, but I for one appreciate the efforts of a public servant to disseminate information to people that could be of use to them.
I do hope that the information given by Phil Kedge is seen by Mr. Woolmer and conveyed to Philip Dunne at a future meeting, at least as a possible means of counteracting the “disappointing” response of the local policing team.
Meanwhile, I express my sympathy to the owner of the Audi that suffered £500 of damage and my hope that now that the offence has been committed rather than prevented in the first place, the police will soon bring the perpetrator to book before too long.
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Rodney,
You clearly do not know anything whatsoever about the Police in any shape or form including ACPO or the roles/responsibilities of the command structure. As a relatively senior Police officer, this man should have known of the diplomatic way to go about this and he could have achieved more by doing so. I make a point of not commenting on matters unless I know what I am talking about. Perhaps you will ask yourself why, out of 43 Police Forces, only 3 have taken up this scheme so far.
Can I assure you that if Mr. Dunne is made aware of this issue, he will certainly work through the proper channels. There are over 2000 officers in West Mercia (or thereabouts) – can you imagine what the result would be if each of those officers gave credence or support for every scheme that was suggested by a member of the public without their commanders knowing anything about it. I would not be critical of the CS officers in any way. And the coalition do not mention directly elected “Sheriff’s” in the manner which you appear to envisage.
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