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Winner 1: L-R, Competition winner Wendy Bodle, District Commissioner for GirlGuiding in Hatch Warren, Basingstoke, Acting Chief Inspector Clive Marsh and Samantha Wheldon, Guide Leader in Hatch Warren.
Winner 2: L-R, Sgt Ruth Sealey from Yateley Safer Neighbourhoods team, a representative of Yateley Industries, competition winner Colin Noad and PC Timothy Faltermeyer from Yateley.
Winner 3: Sergeant David Spacey from Park Gate Safer Neighbourhoods team (left) and competition winner Peter Benjamin (right) present the cheque to representatives from the Duncan Road Church youth group.
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A name in every neighbourhood – Hampshire Constabulary launch postcode search
Communities in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight can now contact their local Safer Neighbourhoods teams in a few clicks, thanks to a new postcode search which is now live on the force web site, www.hampshire.police.uk.
Hampshire Constabulary has met the national target to have implemented the Safer Neighbourhoods style of policing by April 1, 2008. Each of the neighbourhoods in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight now has a dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods team. The force is now also one of a minority of forces in England and Wales with an interactive website containing a clickable map and a postcode search, leading visitors to pages which contain photographs of their local officers, community priorities and a range of methods to use to contact or meet the local team.
Three people from Hampshire did just that, as part of an online competition run at the end of last year, where they were asked to find their local Safer Neighbourhoods sergeant on the force website to be in with a chance of winning a donation to a local community group or project of their choice.
The winners were:
- Colin Noad from Yateley, who donated his cheque to Yateley Industries, a registered charity providing skilled training, employment and accommodation for people with disabilities.
- Wendy Bodle from Basingstoke, who nominated the local Hatch Warren Girl Guide Unit who had been facing closure.
- Peter Benjamin who made his donation to the Duncan Road Church Youth Group in Fareham
The winners, and the groups they nominated to receive their £50 donations, were presented with their cheques by a member of the local Safer Neighbourhoods team for their area.
Safer Neighbourhoods teams have been asked to identify, with the community, their current top three priorities. This helps ensure that the right officers are deployed when someone calls for assistance. If the Safer Neighbourhoods team have identified, for example, criminal damage in a particular area as a priority, and someone from that area calls to report criminal damage, the call taker will be able to see that this is a team priority by using the post code search, and will attempt to deploy a Safer Neighbourhoods team officer first. Not only does this take less urgent work away from the targeted patrol teams, whose role is to respond to emergencies, it also means that Safer Neighbourhoods teams can be deployed to the jobs they need to be deployed to, in order to find long term solutions to problems that the community identify as most important to them.
In some cases, using the information teams have provided on their web page, staff in the Force Enquiry Centre are able to resolve the call without a deployment even being necessary, keeping officers free to attend where they are needed most, or to be on visible patrol in their neighbourhoods.
Jane Easlick, a Force Enquiry Centre operator who has been working with the post code search for some time now before its launch to the public, has seen the benefits that using the system can bring.
She said: “I am using the postcode search frequently because it saves a lot of time in finding the information I need to handle the call appropriately. I don’t need to send continuous messages to officers if something already is a neighbourhood priority. Instead, I can advise callers of what is already being done to tackle the issues.
“This week I spoke to a lady whose 14-year old son had got drunk and ended up in hospital during Easter. She was a youth worker and wanted to find out what she could do to help the community prevent cases like this, and was keen to speak to a police officer. By using the post code search to find her local Safer Neighbourhoods team on the web site, I was able to give her the name of her beat officer and the date and time of the next beat surgery in her neighbourhood, and could even make the officer aware of the lady’s interest.”
