Agenda item

1.

Introductions and Apologies for absence

Apologies were received from: Jo Hudson (Family Liaison Officer) Cllr Guest, Cllr Imarni, Cllr Douris, Dennis Walker (Officer) and Julie Still (DBC Officer)

2.

Minutes of previous meeting 25 May 2016 (previously circulated)

The minutes of the meeting on 25 May 2016 were agreed and signed by the Chairman.

3.

Performance Update

·  HERTS FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICES

Billy McGill presented his presentation and gave a talk on each slide highlighting the following key points.

• The rise in incidents
• Where incidents are and action plans
• Road traffic accidents are decreasing but as its coming to the winter period they predict it will rise. Plans on how to reduce winter trends
• Engagement works, over 600 homes have been visited for fire safety checks.
• Trying to promote Hemel Station as a community activity centre that provides services to DVLA for new drivers
• How they are soon to be assisting the ambulance service with cardiac arrests.
• There has been a rise in fires nothing alarming.

Cllr Silwal arrived at 7:37pm

Questions and Answers

Resident Patrick Beynon asked if fire safety checks for the elderly were being done on their own or do they get refereed from other people as most elderly people don’t have modern technology to refer themselves.

Billy McGill said that there are leaflets informing people how to be referred for checks, they can also drop in to their local fire station to find out more. We deliver to who is in need first. He also confirmed that they are due to get involved in slips trips and fall in the near future.

Resident Cath asked if there had been an increase in malicious calls.

Billy McGill said that there had been a decrease in the district but not across the county.

Cllr Madden thanks the Fire Service for the for the fantastic 12 week Duke of Edinburgh course which they provide.

Billy McGill said it’s a privilege to provide this service and they are willing to get involved in any youth engagement that they can.

Resident Spencer said that he regularly visits the elderly but finds it difficult to share information from them; he asked how this can be done.

Billy McGill this will always be a problem sharing information, they hope to have a 1 stop shop in the future, locally we share it but we need to look at the bigger picture.

Resident Spencer said that the Neighbour Hood Watch (NHW) would like to be partners of the Fire Service.

Cllr Tindall said that the adults safeguarding board can help; he will provide details to the Chairman.

The Chairman thanked Billy McGill for his presentation.

·                    Partnership (including Funding Update)

Dave Moore gave and update on the partnership update highlighting the following key points.

• What bids have been put in for funding and what it will be used for?
• All crime is up but its due to the way we record things. It’s up between 14-26% in the last year.
• Where we sit countywide, between 5^th and 8^th.
• Graphs were provided giving a breakdown of acted crime from 2015-2016.
• Update on 3 PPO’s regular offenders.
• Vehicle crime is a problem in our area.

Questions and Answers

Resident Tony Coley refereed to the table, over the 5 years the population has grown is this done per capita.

Dave Moore confirmed that the graph was done per 1000 head of population. He also confirmed that there are more vehicles registered on the roads.

Sandra Jackson asked why burglaries were lower in 2016

Dave Moore believes it was due to more successful arrests last year which took offenders off the streets.

Sandra Jackson asked what strategy they had as theft from vans had gone up.

Doug Black confirmed that they are promoting security and assistance to companies, They are also improving CCTV. Contractors are advised to move their vehicles to well-lit areas and ongoing work is being done to promote safety.

Cllr Tindall referred to anti-social behaviour, does this include motorists parking inappropriately causing anti-social behaviour.

Dave Moore confirmed it does include this. Cllr Tindall to speak to Dave Moore regarding an issue.

Mike Wallis asked if a graph could be provided for criminal damage.

Dave Moore said he will prepare this for next time as there has been a real increase.

Cllr England asked if there’s a seasonal trend to this crime.

Dave Moore confirmed yes when the nights draw in and its darker crime rates are higher.

Cllr Harden said that he had seen in the Gazette that mobility scooters had been stolen, can we identify where there are or are they ever found.

Doug Black said that because they are untraceable they just disappear.

A conversation took place about mobility scooters and it was suggested by Sandra Jackson that people should use immobilise.com to register any valuable products, pictures can be uploaded and if items are recovered they can be traced to their owner.

·                    HERTS CONSTABULARY

Doug Black presented this presentation highlighting and giving an update on the following,

• Winter safety advice leaflet
• Expanding the key drivers
• Incident figures from Jan 2015 – Sep 2016
• Crime rates have increased yet resources are staying the same
• Over a quarter of calls in the last period were to do with Safeguarding issues.
• Stop and search figures and the break down in age groups.
• Watford has the most knife crime
• Billy Dove and knife crime

Questions and Answers

Resident Spencer asked if all PC’s have cameras.

Doug Black confirmed that all PC’s have boy worn cameras as systems have been improved; it’s another layer of safety for the Public and Officers.

Doug Black gave his thanks to the NHW team and their successful work.

A short video was played of day to day duties that the Police get involved in.

Cllr Harden put forward 3 questions which resident Frank submitted before the meeting.

1. Do you expect young people and their parents to go to Watford to hand over their knives? There should be somewhere closer.

George Holland said currently it is only the three police stations due to how the knifes have to be stored, however they are looking at partners for next year for other locations locally.

Cllr Madden added to that, she is looking at funding for special bins to be made for knives.

2. What is the latest update on closure of Hemel’s police station will there be an office staffed with civilians in the town or in the town hall?

Doug Black said that there is no front desk, it is still under review. The location is yet to be confirmed and we are hoping to have a Police Office presence.

3. Has a decision been made to have a response and CID team in Hemel or has it been decided to not have such a thing?

They planned to have a safer neighbourhood team.

Cllr Taylor refereed to the video and praised the staff on politeness.

Resident Patrick Beynon thanked Dacorum Police. The last few months he credits the Police for the quality of messages being sent out.

Hayley John thanked George Holland and stated she will contact him with regards to the service.

Cllr Madden thanked them for the support for Billy’s Wish without the support we wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we have.

Resident Malcolm Clements asked if hate crime had risen since the referendum.

George Holland confirmed that we had seen a decrease in our area.

Cllr Tindall referred to parking across garages, where do PCO’s come into this.

George Holland said that the Police will respond if they have the availability at the time, however if this is a long term issue its HCC or DBC.

Cllr Tindall asked if serious discussions had taken place with the Police and DBC regarding these issues.

Cllr Harden explained his understanding on this.

Cllr W Wyatt-Lowe suggested that the partnerships come up with a proposal for the issues.

Doug Black confirmed that the Police are only a short term issue and he will put forward suggestions made.

Cllr Tindall asked if powers could be given to DBC staff/traffic wardens to police issues and enforce power.

David Gibson said that he was unsure that this could be done.

David Gibson will also take comments on board regarding parking issues.

George Holland said that parking issues where looked at last year and the answer was no.

Cllr Harden said as a partnership we will look at this as it is anti-social behaviour.

Resident John A said that he has passed on information to the Police regarding people using mobile phones whilst driving or eating at the wheel and unfortunately nothing could be done, he asked the question on dash cam advice to catch these offenders.

Doug Black confirmed that a lot more people were using dash cams as the data is live and they can catch offenders, with this sort of technology they can catch them.

David Gibson said that they are looking at a similar system to Sussex, It will collate information that people put in and it will highlight regular offenders etc.

Residents of Highfield asked what was going on in there street, it is very dark at night and the Police are always attending.

George Holland said that a lot is happening there and they are regularly being called down there, there have been warrants for arrest, closure of premises and a lot of drug issues.

The residents had confirmed that they had given details of vehicle which deal drugs. This also happens right next to a school in daylight and nothing has been done.

George Holland will look more into this.

Doug Black suggested signing up to OWL.

4.         DOMESTIC ABUSE

Philip Moss gave a presentation on domestic abuse and stated that there has been an increase of 23.7% over the previous year.

Questions and Answers

Cllr Madden asked if the majority of victims were women.

Philip Moss stated that 1 in 10 for women and 1 in 6 for men.

Cllr Tindall asked if there is advice for instant action.

Philip Moss explained and expressed what DVPO and how the Police can issue orders if a person doesn’t provide evidence or supporting information, the Police can still enforce this without their help.

Catherine Appleby asked if they had any involvement with Women’s Aid.

Philip Moss said yes they do on a daily basis.

5.       POLICE & CRIME COMMISSIONER UPDATE

David Gibson gave brief talk which he introduced the new the Chief Constable Charlie Hall.

He also highlighted that we had fly tipping funds and road safety funds and regarding the street triage 2 vehicles are out on the road and 1 is an unmarked ambulance.

Questions and Answers

There were no questions asked.

6.         AOB

None.

The meeting ended at 10:02pm

Next meeting will be

Wednesday 24 May 2017

Issued by Kayley Johnston

Democratic Services Support Officer

01442 222226

kayley.johnston@dacorum.gov.uk