Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to set out how the Fenland Community Safety Partnership (referred to as partnership) identifies their priorities for Fenland. The report also details an up-to-date performance picture for 2022/23 and includes the performance report relating to CCTV services for 2022.

Members considered the Community Safety Partnership report.

The Chairman welcomed Councillor Sue Wallwork, Alan Boughen, Dan Horn, and Inspector Andy Morris to the meeting.

Members made comments, asked questions and received responses as follows:

1.    Councillor Hay asked what is being done to get out the message that e-scooters are illegal to use on public highways unless part of a scheme in the inner cities, as not everyone is aware they are breaking the law. Inspector Morris agreed e-scooters do present a challenge, and in Fenland police use the ‘4 E’ approach, that is to educate, encourage and explain before using enforcement. They have an operation that works closely with their prevention hub, which is doing a lot of work to address retailers, manufacturers, insurance companies, schools, and parents. The Safer Schools Officer repeatedly gives presentations in schools about the use of e-scooters, one school was encouraging their use as a safe mode of transport so that had to be addressed quickly. It is a constant battle but statistically, Fenland is the safest of the six district areas across the force in terms of how many road traffic collisions have involved e-scooters and how many of them have been used in crime. A further challenge is that in Cambs City they are legal; eventually it is likely they will be made legal more widely but in the meantime he would expect officers not to turn a blind eye unless something more pressing takes their attention. If they come across someone who has already been spoken to, they will look at them more punitively. In essence therefore, the police are doing what they can in terms of education and enforcement, in terms of awareness there is a quarterly corporate communications campaign. Meanwhile, retailers continue to sell them as it is not illegal to do so, and they can be used on private land.

2.    Councillor Hay thanked Inspector Morris and mentioned that Chatteris also has a problem with off-road bikes, but it is difficult to ring the police for action as many do not have number plates. Inspector Morris said tactics to deal with off-road bikes are quite challenging because unless there is an immediate risk to life which they are made aware of, the consequences of going after someone are greater than the initial threat. There is a problem-solving plan in place for that very issue in Chatteris, working with the community and the Problem-Solving Group to identify those involved and working with the schools, as it is likely the perpetrators are in education. The Safer Schools officer is on the case as are the March Neighbourhood Policing Team and Inspector Morris said he would like for members to encourage their constituents to report the matter as well because although they may not be able to do anything there and then, he can raise that there have been an excessive number of service requests in so many days and would then be able to call it in for additional support. There is a wider network of resources available to him that must be backed up by data. He meets regularly with Sgt Arnold to review calls for service and discuss the issues and sometimes what the community is telling them is different to what is in front of them, and it is therefore often challenging to justify putting resources into something if the calls for service are not being received.

3.    Councillor Booth expressed his thanks to Sgt Arnold and the Wisbech team regarding the issue of road safety because he has seen an increase of police enforcement checks being undertaken in rural areas and is grateful for the support given to Community Speedwatch. He would like assurance that the police will continue with this strategy as it is starting to work and can be seen in their figures. Inspector Morris said all the neighbourhood policing team are trained to use speed guns and he thanked Councillor Booth for the recognition which he will feed back. They set quarterly engagement priorities based on what communities say what they want the police to address, and speeding is mentioned each time. Hence there is a lot of focus on speeding enforcement, and when looking at what has been done, the team has spent over 400 hours on speed enforcement since the start of the year and have reported over 100 drivers for summons and issued over 200 fixed penalty notices and this work will continue to support Vision Zero.

4.    Councillor Barber said there has been a marked increase in anti-social behaviour in villages around Wisbech over the last few months; police are coming to talk about this in Leverington, but what is happening to try and stop it? Inspector Morris said it had been highlighted to him as having escalated about two months ago and he referred to his earlier point about off-road biking and the importance of calling in. Firstly, he asked Sgt Arnold to commission a problem-solving plan, the purpose of which is to understand the scale of the issue, this involves research into the offenders, calls for service and feedback received from the community to understand what is going on. He agreed it is a priority to tackle ASB in the rural areas and has the Safer Schools Officer going into the schools to speak to students. A meeting is being planned with those identified to understand why they are behaving as they do; he has dealt with similar issues before where sometimes funding bids have been productive in getting young people occupied and out of antisocial behaviour taking place because of boredom, but sometimes it does purely involve criminal intent which of course will then be dealt with differently. If the police can support an issue by reducing boredom risk then they will; resources are deployed currently to Leverington with a dedicated special constable, and there is a crossover between neighbourhood policing teams to support each other. Inspector Morris added that he will be at that meeting in Leverington himself next week to explain more. 

5.    Councillor Gerstner acknowledged the comprehensive ‘You Said, We Did’ in the report pack and stated he feels sympathetic for the police. Until government legislation is made clearer for police forces then they are in a very difficult position. That said, it is a case of waiting for an accident to happen, and he feels that is when action will be ramped up. Also, he understands the issue of resources as Chairman of Neighbourhood Watch for 14 years. In respect of Whittlesey, the perpetrators know what time the police work and at a town council meeting it was asked whether consideration could be given to funding being made available to extend those hours on an ad hoc basis, particularly in summer when people congregate later at night. He would not like to target a specific group of people, but anti-social behaviour and damage tends to occur more often in the summer months. Inspector Morris said he appreciated the feedback, there are provisions under the Police Act where local authorities can make applications in terms of funding. It is not something he would consider a long-term fix, but he is giving consideration to changing hours for that reason to provide a more visible town presence. Officers do have to balance work and personal life, but policing does need to be more flexible to meet and support demand.

6.    Councillor Davis said some of the villages are not getting the speed checks they would like to see and asked if there are any plans for moving around the villages. Inspector Morris said yes, but it must be intelligence-led, therefore let him know of specific times and he will put officers in place.

7.    Councillor Nawaz asked if speed cameras are monitored and enforced, stating that if police are seen to be more vigilant perhaps drivers would take more notice. He quoted a particular stretch of road on the A605 leading into Whittlesey from Coates and Eastrea where drivers do not observe the speed limit and pedestrians are frightened to walk on the pavement. Inspector Morris responded that he could not answer about speed cameras, they are commissioned through Highways. He can talk about resources and provide data collated from speed enforcement checks in the villages but again can only look at an area when the team are on duty against other competing demands. However, he is happy to look into this further. In terms of speeding, Fenland statistically for the last year had the lowest number of slight injury road traffic collisions with 92. The lowest across the six districts for serious accidents had 31 and it was the third lowest fatal with eight fatal collisions last year but the majority of those can be contributed to the A47 and A141 and Fenland also had the lowest overall total of 131 road traffic collisions compared to the six other districts. He would like to think the speed enforcement work contributes to those numbers in some way. 

8.    Councillor Sennitt Clough confirmed the two speed cameras in Whittlesey do work, and data can be found online about how many fines have been issued in any month. However, she wonders whether the ones in the villages that inform drivers what speed they are doing are effective enough to deter speeders, as this is something she has also witnessed on many occasions. Inspector Morris said speed detection recorders as they are termed do provide an indication but if looking at getting these installed in Coates maybe it is something that he can speak to the Vision Zero team about.

9.    Councillor Gerstner said the Police and Crime Commissioner funded three speed camera vans mainly for Cambridgeshire. He asked Inspector Morris if there is a joined-up approach with the PCC on speeding issues and identifying problem areas as they feed back to the Speed Watch team at Cambridgeshire all the data. Inspector Morris said yes that is the Vision Zero team he alluded to earlier. They campaign to have zero fatalities by 2040 and so have access to those vans across the whole constabulary area. 

10. Councillor Gowler said that looking at the CCTV statistics, it records -653 patrols over the year which is concerning. He represents Chatteris and the town council contributes about £20,000 yearly towards CCTV and have discussed at meetings what they get out of it. Over the course of a year there have been six arrests and fines. Dan Horn said in terms of the Chatteris Town Council contribution, there was a meeting with all town council members in the last 12 months to explain the context around the work with CCTV and what they do. There are incidents spotted and referred on and then actual convictions and this is where the Council integrates to work as one team with police colleagues. There is a meeting this week and he would suggest Councillor Gowler attend this for more detail and all funding partners are going to be invited to an event in early autumn about this also which aims to justify the investment that the towns are making. He would say it is a good news story for Chatteris that it is a safe place and that CCTV acts as a deterrent. Councillor Gowler asked for clarification of what the -653 patrols over the year meant. Dan Horn said he would think it is to do with a short period of time where there was an issue on the police antenna in March which meant some patrols in some parts of the county could not be done for that period. However, since the shared service began with Peterborough, performance on patrols has gone up.

11. Councillor Gowler mentioned illegal and dangerous parking and his feeling that the police do not put a high priority on this. If, or until, civil parking enforcement comes in, this is a major problem throughout Fenland. Unfortunately, the public’s impression is that the police do not care; he hopes this is not correct but would like to know if action is taken when reports are received. Councillor Morris agreed that it is widely acknowledged that there is no civil parking enforcement, but he needs to weigh up priorities. The PCSOs in March, Chatteris and Wisbech are more focussed on parking enforcement but again it goes back to community engagement; the police seek priorities through customer engagement.  Parking was identified as a problem in Whittlesey but not in Chatteris due to the number of reports received, hence that received more focus. However, the caveat is that the police must give way to something more harmful, but people do have to take responsibility so if the police can do some educational work with bad parkers then it may reduce the problem a little. He added that if Councillor Gowler has a specific area that he can deploy PCSOs to, then let him know. Councillor Gowler thanked Inspector Morris.

12. Councillor Booth said he was interested to hear the statistics provided regarding road accidents. It was not long ago that Fenland were recording the second or third highest number of young fatalities because of roadside drains and ditches. It does appear to have been turned round; he believes the research was done by Brake although he has not seen any reports on that lately. Maybe that is something the Council could obtain because he thinks that is quite useful and would imagine Vision Zero will be looking at that. Regarding community engagement, Councillor Booth suggested the police think about attending large scale events in the rural communities, such as the Parson Drove Car Show, Gorefield Show and Manea Gala, as they would provide a great opportunity to speak to a lot of people in one place and would be cost effective. Inspector Morris said for reassurance that he had picked up that he was not receiving operational plans for events so commissioned some work to get the events register circulated and get duties changed for the summer so policing teams attended the March and Chatteris summer festivals and will attend as many as they can, including the March Armed Forces Fair in September and Wisbech Rock Festival. However, he is relying on the information to come to him. Events are risk assessed based on the necessity for police to attend, normally community events do not meet the threshold for police attendance because there is not a risk of crime or disorder, and the advice is to step away because it is the event organiser’s responsibility. If the police attend there might be a sense of implied liability so if something goes wrong it is on the police to pick it up. However, he is now fully supportive of his officers attending public events because of the benefit of community engagement, particularly with the younger generation. Councillor Booth thanked Inspector Morris.

13. Councillor Davis said she is Chairman of Wimblington Parish Council and was unaware of a community engagement event in Wimblington and Doddington as mentioned in the presentation. She agreed it is probably easier for the police to attend the larger scale events but in some of the smaller villages like Wimblington there was a fun day with 800 people so even if the police had a couple of officers walking around, they could glean a lot. Inspector Morris said that Wimblington and Doddington are supported by the two Sgt Arnolds, so please feed into the small parish meetings and talk about forthcoming events. With a little notice he can change the team’s duties to provide cover; but now with some infrastructure in place to horizon scan for events, he can ensure they attend more than they have in the past.

14. Councillor Gerstner said he would like to express his thanks for the regular enforcement of parking in Whittlesey Town Council’s car park. It has been a priority in the area and a very emotive subject as always you are wrong if you do and wrong if you don’t. But again, there has been a marked increase in parking enforcement, and he hope it continues because people need to know what the law is. Inspector Morris thanked Councillor Gerstner and said he would feed that back.

15. Councillor Booth said years ago he asked about the possibility of getting mobile CCTVs to rural areas, but having been quoted some £100k it was too costly; he knows it must be demand-led but sometimes issues arise that need to be reacted to, for example surely it would help to get some mobiles into Leverington for a few weeks to put some focus there and act as a deterrent. Dan Horn said there is a cost, but it is more manageable now than previously quoted. He highlighted that Doddington now has a camera installed around the play area, which they fund, and this is due to the wi-fi connectivity linked to the antenna mentioned earlier. So, there is the ability for all parish councils to look at that now and he would encourage them all to see if they can work with the district council to attract funding. In terms of reporting incidents, Dan Horn mentioned that sometimes people get frustrated with trying to get through on the telephone and he stressed the importance of using the online reporting tools available if people have that option. Inspector Morris agreed that does make a difference as his teams daily scan calls for service; he has a regular debrief of what is going on and then sets their focus on those issues. Councillor Booth said that was a fairly encouraging response, but he is concerned by the implication that the parish councils pay the costs. Fenland District Council represents the whole area, with 25% of the population living in the rural areas so it is disappointing to hear they can only get a mobile CCTV if the parish councils fund them. Surely FDC should be able to fund a mobile CCTV that can go anywhere within the district. Dan Horn responded that the difficulty is for FDC to find the funding for any time, there are a lot of demands for new CCTV cameras which is why FDC has relied upon and received support from town councils who have paid for cameras which FDC then monitor. Chatteris is a good example, and Doddington looked at the funding options to do that. FDC has a tight capital programme, and the history of cameras is that they have always been around the town centres, much of it initially due to the assets of the Council and then expanded into becoming a tool to tackle crime and disorder. Councillor Wallwork said that she met with the Police and Crime Commissioner’s team recently and they have three mobile cameras they are willing to lend for up to 12 weeks. This is not a long-term response but may help with the ASB problem in Leverington. An application would need to be made first, but she can look into this further if required. Councillor Booth said that is his point, there is talk of the parish councils funding it but what would happen is with a spate of ASB it then calms down because those involved move onto other things and it starts relaxing, particularly over the summer holidays which is when there is a tendency to see a spike. But it could be that all that is required is a camera that can be moved around the district to any current hotspot and then moved on to another location, the prime example being Leverington. Councillor Booth added that the PCC is looking after the whole of Cambridgeshire, and with only three cameras for six districts there will be competition for them which is why he thinks FDC should be looking at getting a mobile CCTV camera itself. Councillor Wallwork suggested that the cameras are borrowed first and see what the competition is like.

16. Councillor Hay asked if the town council funded the three new cameras in Wisbech. Dan Horn responded that these were to do with a specific external funding project called Safer Streets 4, which is evidence based across Cambridgeshire. Looking at the data around Fenland, Alan Boughen made the case for Medworth Ward because of the spike of incidents within it being vastly different to anywhere else in Fenland and across Cambridgeshire. Medworth was chosen by the police along with two wards in Peterborough and as part of that for Safer Streets 4, the Council made the case that three CCTV cameras would be good as part of a collective bid for a range of actions which are still ongoing in Wisbech.

17. Councillor Barber referred to speeding and commented how frustrating it is that whenever a police vehicle is checking speeding, social media gets flooded with warnings and she asked what could be done about that. Inspector Morris responded that there is a specific criminal offence of obstructing police if it can be evidenced, unfortunately it cannot. If someone flashes their vehicle with somebody who is, say, doing 38 miles an hour coming into a 30, the person who flashed their car is committing a criminal offence. If that person was driving at 30 and was flashed, then the person flashing their car would not be committing a criminal offence. It is about preventing a specific act there and then. He agreed the social media comments can be frustrating, but the police now look upon them as hopefully a means of slowing people down and they may just protect somebody from an accident.

18. Councillor Woollard said with the current traffic restrictions through the centre of March there is still a lot of parking on the yellow lines on the stretch between the Market Place and the bridge which creates havoc. Inspector Morris thanked Councillor Woollard and said Sgt Arnold would note this and will deploy his PCSOs. 

19. Councillor Davis thanked everyone for their attendance. Inspector Morris advised members that he is more than happy for them to contact him directly with any issues and he would have his contact details circulated.

20. Councillor Booth said much of the discussion had referred to Vision Zero in respect of road safety and he suggested that they be invited to a future meeting as it had been some years since they last attended.

The Community Safety Partnership report was noted for information.

(Councillor Booth asked that it be noted he is a member of Community Speedwatch).