Agenda item

A presentation from Cllr Arif Hussain, Deputy Cabinet Member and Gideon Springer, Service Director.

The Board received and noted a presentation on Community Safety by Councillor Arif Hussain, Deputy Cabinet Member for Communities with special responsibility for Community Safety and Gideon Springer, Community Safety Head of Service.

It was agreed that the presentation would be attached to the minutes for information.

The following comments and questions were raised after the presentation:

·         Councillor MacBean commented that due to anti-social behaviour in Chesham, both she and Councillor Southworth were watching the CCTV review very closely due to, during the Chiltern District Council days, trying to implement major improvement but which never took place. It was noted however, that there were plans in place to carry out some of the revisions which were previously agreed. It was not just a case of replacing cameras but putting new ones up. That said, criminals tended to know where the cameras were and would therefore avoid that particular area.

·         It was noted that mobile cameras were to be purchased as they would be able to target different areas compared to the static ones which covered the main areas of criminal activity such as the town centre. However, these mobile cameras would be for the whole of the Bucks area.

·         In response to a query about rural crime, it was noted that, historically crime took place in populated areas which tend to show as ‘hotspots’ when the police carry out heatmaps to show crime hotspots. However, it was obvious that the rural areas also needed cover and support. The Community Safety team work with TVP to identify different ways to give that support and it was believed that the mobile CCTV units would help in this regard as well as reliance on rural residents providing intelligence to the police so they could build up a picture of where and what sort of crimes are taking place.

·         Cross border crime was a challenge particularly at Christmas time particularly with the theft of Christmas trees. Obviously it would be a case of priorities, so Christmas tree thefts would not take precedence over burglaries or vehicles being stolen although a balance needed to be struck. It all depends on what resources were available at the time.

·         Concern was raised in relation to door-to-door salesman more commonly known as ‘Nottingham Knockers’ or ‘Azure sellers’ and despite sympathy expressed by some, no communication was available to help people understand that saying “no” at the door was important. Concern was also raised that perhaps these sellers were actually ‘scouts’ getting an opportunity to look through front doors to then pass information back to criminals. While this was true to some extent quite often this activity was not illegal although it was a bit of a grey area. Community Safety did carry out campaigns to raise awareness of these people as well as those who knock on doors asking to take away rubbish and assuring the householder they had a licence, but in reality they did not and would fly-tip the rubbish.

The Chairman thanked Councillor Hussain and Gideon Springer for their informative presentation.