Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

Welcome to the April edition of your neighbourhood policing newsletter.
Over the last three months, your March Neighbourhood Policing Team have been focussing on three main areas as their local priorities, based on feedback from the community.

Illegal parking around primary schools across the sector – More than 70 fixed penalty notices have been issued across the sector during the last quarter, covering patrols at 13 different primary schools. 

You will have seen messages being send out from my predecessor via eCops, and also letters direct into schools for parents and guardians, with a reminder of their responsibility around parking and the safety of their children and their peers attending school. This will continue to be a priority for the team over the coming months.

Retail crime across the sector – This was a new priority set at the beginning of the quarter and the team have been working hard to tackle the issues including:

• Engaging with 40 stores and their staff across the sector
• Carrying out more than 100 hours of patrols where the team have engaged with retail staff, dealt with reported issues including anti-social behaviour in stores, shoplifting and burglaries
• Obtaining a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) on a prolific offender in Whittlesey
• Making five arrests relating to retail crime
• Carrying out a day of action in partnership with Fenland District Council to deliver crime prevention advice and information packs to retailers across the sector

Speeding in rural parishes – More than 20 hours of speed enforcement activity has been carried out by the team in rural parishes, resulting in 25 fixed penalty notices being issued and road safety advice given to many more drivers.

Through this work, three hotspot areas were identified: A605 from Whittlesey to March, Wimblington Road in March and Elm Road, also in March.

As a result, the team will be prioritising speeding on the A605 in the coming months. 

Kind Regards,

Inspector Michael Basford
Fenland Neighbourhood Policing Team

Current priorities for your March Neighbourhood Policing Team

(Covering March, Wimblington, Doddington, Benwick, Chatteris, Pondersbridge, Whittlesey, Coates, Turves, Manea)

Every three months we use a combination of our own data and your feedback via our community policing survey to set three priorities for each of our neighbourhood policing teams to focus on for the coming quarter.

Between April and June this year, your March team are prioritising:

• Illegal parking around primary schools across the sector
• Drug use and supply in March
• Speeding on the A605 

  Crime prevention and useful informationThe warmer weather has finally arrived! While we don’t want to put a dampener on it (no pun intended), we would like to take the opportunity to remind you have home security and taking precautions to protect your home from potential burglars.

  To minimize the risk of burglary during spring and summer:

  • Consider not leaving windows open during warm weather, and make sure windows and doors are locked when not at home.
  • If people are going on holiday, avoid advertising it on social media. 
  • Keep gardening tools locked away and not out on display. When storing tools, make sure locks on sheds and other outdoor buildings are properly secure.  

  You can find more burglary prevention advice on our dedicated home security webpages

  Court news

  • 25 arrests made during ‘Safer Business Action’ days
  • Self-taught cannabis grower sentenced
  • Annual stats show impact of rural crime team
  • 100mph driver caught with class A drugs

  You can find more articles like these in the news section of our website.

  Finally, your information helps us to understand the types of issues affecting you and your local community and informs our quarterly neighbourhood policing priorities. To have your say, please head to our community policing survey.

  Please DO NOT use this form to report a crime – this should be done either via our website’s online reporting forms or webchat service, or by calling 101. Always dial 999 in an emergency.