Turnout hailed by 'lonely' officer

A Shropshire police officer whose bid to get back to grassroots policing failed when no-one turned up to two community sessions has had more success in his latest efforts.

Constable Sean Bailey, who is Church Stretton's new local policing officer, had been left with just a community support officer for company when not one person attended the 90-minute sessions in the area.

But yesterday he held another meeting at the town's library and about six people turned up.

Constable Bailey said he was delighted to find a number of people waiting to talk to him.

He said during the meeting: "I have had about five or six people come in at the moment.

"People have been raising a few issues. They wanted to talk about speeding and parking issues, especially drivers parking on the pavement in the town.

"At least three people came to talk about parking on the pavements. We have had lots of people today, it has been great. I even had one chap phone me up to apologise for not coming to the meeting on Monday at Rushbury."

Surgery

And speaking generally about the area and his role in the community, he added: "It is going really well. It is a really good area really but it does have its fair share of problems."

Constable Bailey said his public surgery at Rushbury Village Hall on Monday had "turned out to be a very lonely hour and a half" for him and community support officer, Debbie Lawton.

He said he simply could not understand why the first two meetings had not been successful.

Constable Bailey said every effort had been made to promote and publicise his meetings, by word of mouth, in the local press, village magazines, distributing posters and advertising the dates on the West Mercia Police internet site.

Constable Bailey was also keen to urge residents to come along to future meetings.

He said: "We really would like local residents to turn out to raise any issues of interest or concern."

Further meetings have been arranged for 2pm on September 8 in Church Stretton Library, the main Partners and Communities Together meeting in the Sylvester Horne Institute at 7pm on September 15 and in the library at 2pm on September 26.

By Sophie Bignall