Malmesbury And The Villages Community Area Partnership

Community Safety Forum Meeting Wednesday 9th January 2013 7:0pm United Reformed Church Hall, West Street, Malmesbury

Minutes
Attending: M Rea (Chair), M Allen (Minutes), Member of the neighbourhood policing team and members of the public

1.

Apologies for absence None

2.

News and Police priorities Sgt Martin Alvis commented about recent flooding events and how successful the Malmesbury Police Facebook page has been at helping to spread information about the state of flooding and how passable roads were. A good example of the Police and the community working together. Their Facebook page has over 900 followers and it is averaging about 2000 visitors a week. Womad review: Police are happy with the review and are working with Womad of the policing of the 2013 event. Move to payment by cheque or bank order only (no cash) at scrap yards along with other regional level efforts have led to radically reduced metal theft. Malmesbury Town & Malmesbury Villages have set their priority on traffic related matters. This will involve issues from speeding to inconsiderate parking, drink driving, driving whilst unfit through drugs, construction and use and of course supporting our valuable teams of volunteers out their in the community carrying out speed watch. Ashton Keynes and Minety team will be continuing with their high visibility patrols to deter the recent burglaries, gain intelligence and also target the pockets of ASB that occur from time to time. They will also be supporting the safer driving priority of the other teams.

3.

Social Media, newsletters etc Police Facebook page running well and proved really useful with recent weather related events. Newsletters: police always welcome feed back on how they can improve their services. One such matter that gets raised are the printed newsletters that they produce quarterly. The feedback is these are very often out of date by the time they are seen and are not that relevant 2-3 months down the line. The police have decided that for the time being, following the success of Facebook and the many followers they now have, to promote Facebook as an excellent form of 2 way communication between them and the community. Officers will also submit short but topical articles to parish and town newsletters/magazines hopefully on a monthly basis. NHW Coordinators are encouraged to take as much information they want from our pages to disseminate to their schemes. As a Community we need to encourage people to use the world wide web, if not at home then taking the opportunity to use it at the local libraries. Wiltshire Council are taking a lead on this and more information can be found on their website concerning making the web accessible to all. As far as Facebook is concerned, if you know someone that has the internet through either a PC, laptop or smart phone, encourage them to sign up, visit the Malmesbury Police Facebook page and like them to receive topical updates. There is a lot of fear concerning social media, used responsibly it really is a great tool.

4.

CCTV Market Cross CCTV still not working. Town Policing Team are being trained to download images from cameras, however this raises questions about evidential integrity which might undermine their value and so members of the town council staff should take over and be trained for this role (other councils do it). Martin Rea to contact Ray Sanderson and Jeff Penfold at Malmesbury Town Council (copying to Martin Alvis) about the council doing this.

5.

Other Issues If you think a crime is in progress dial 999, otherwise contact 101. Neighbourhood Watch no report. Martin Rea to contact Ian Mace to see where it is working and where it needs help to assist it.

Date of next meetings Wednesday 27th March 2013 7:30pm Venue tbc