Boxgrove Parish Council Imogen Whitaker - Clerk & RFO to the Council 2 McAdam Close, Hambrook, PO18 8FG T: 01243 575094/E: [email protected]/www.boxgrovepc.org __________________________________________________________________________________ Minutes of the Parish Council Meeting Monday 4th June 2018 at 7.00pm at Boxgrove Village Hall and Community Centre Present: Cllr H Potter Chairman Cllr Tynan Cllr Reed Cllr Addison Vice Chairman Cllr Bish Cllr Moyler Cllr Lloyd Tooze In attendance: The Clerk CDC – Cllr Henry Potter Police Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne Inspector West Chichester Police WSCC: Cllr Jeremy Hunt 19 members of the Public 1. Apologies Cllr Jill Raikes 2. Declarations of interest None 3. Katy Bourne Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex – to answer questions concerning traffic calming in Boxgrove and surrounding areas The Chairman introduced Ms Bourne to the meeting as having been invited to answer questions about traffic calming. Inspector Danny West was also present from Chichester Police. Ms Bourne started by saying that after several years, Sussex police were at a real point of change. With the significant rise in the local precept to £1 per month per band D household this will be a gamechanger for Sussex. Previously funds were having to be taken out of the budget to get by which was having a negative impact. The Police model had to change. 476 posts were going to be lost. Now those posts will remain and more will be created. The additional money will go into specific areas: • Local policing – more officers particularly more officers policing roads – main and rural – a transformation strategy • Contact with the police – clearly 101 is not as efficient as it should be. (101 is not just about calls from the public – it is a control and command centre – much bigger than the public perceive) • Feeling safe out and about at night and in the day but more specifically feeling safe in your own home Ms Bourne's job is to make that happen but for once she said that she came bearing better news. The increase in precept will remain for two years and then go back down again. She reminded the meeting that the Police precept for Sussex was the 5th lowest in the country. It has been very difficult in the recent past. There will be an increase of 200 officers over the next four years. By this time next year there should be a tangible difference. Having spoken to police forces, the Community Speed Watch (CSW) operate on line and they are tightening up procedures. They have one officer who works with CSW volunteers (Steve O'Connell) but there are currently 189 registered groups. Question 1: Mr Mack Westbourne Parish Council. Westbourne Parish Council has been waiting 3 months to have the ready and waiting group trained. Ms Bourne said that it would improve but not overnight. She will action this training for Westbourne. Boxgrove Parish Council Minutes 4th June 2018 Page 1 Action Katy Bourne Jim McDonald (Boxgrove) said that up until now all that training has been done by PCSO Jason Lemm. Ms Bourne said that he would be training up another PCSO to work with him. Question 2: David Blyth What has happened to "community feeling" and mutual respect these days? If a young person is caught he is protected by the system – name and shame would work better. Ms Bourne said that she wouldn't agree entirely with that sentiment and name and shame could have the opposite and detrimental effect. She had recently had to deal with a child of 10 who had been expelled from school and whose own mother couldn't control him. Getting under the skin of these children is difficult. Just putting them in court or a cell overnight is not the answer. It is far better to work with lots of different agencies. We are a more aggressive society and there is a high expectation of having everything now. The violence that the police meet on a daily basis is quite profound compared to 20 years ago. All officers now have body-cams which record and offer protection. Inspector West reminded the meeting that although there is a small collection of children who are hard-core the vast majority are working hard and are law-abiding individuals who are achieving well. We must keep this in perspective. Cllr Hunt talked about the Integrated Prevention and Earliest Help service (IPEH) being run by WSCC which works with families. Sometimes they are working with families who have been unemployed for 3 or 4 generations. Insp West said that Jim Bartlett former Chief Inspector was doing just that too. Question 3: Cllr Lloyd Tooze Boxgrove PC Cllr Tooze asked if there were statistics showing follow-up rates to reported crime. Things that affect the community. There is a general belief that if you report it, it won't be dealt with. Insp West said that if a crime was reported it would be acted upon. Each morning they run through the reported incidents. However, the police can no longer do "reassurance" visits which is how the public interprets follow up. He said that in the Boxgrove area there had been a reduction in all reported crime except house burglary. (Part of this rise in house burglary could be accounted for by the changed reporting schemes). He said that in terms of crimes of alcohol, domestic abuse, drugs for example they would check for a "series" of crime and it would be followed up. Ms Bourne said that fraud against the elderly was on the increase and criminals are deliberately targeting older people. Operation Signature is however using a face-to-face response to these crimes as it is more easily understood by the elderly, and they recognise it as an opener to the next steps. Other violent crime without injury on the rise is online abuse. Question 4: Geoffrey Keech Funtington Parish Council Funtington has the second largest concentration of traveller sites in Sussex. The former PCSO whose special remit was travellers was the only person who could get on to these sites (ie would be tolerated by the travellers). Now he has gone what are we supposed to do? Ms Bourne said call the police, but Mr Keech noted that the police do not get access to the sites. Question 5 Kate Beach Tangmere Parish Council Ms Beach had called the contact centre (101) and waited 50 minutes before being able to report a break in. She said that would obviously be reducing the crime figures because people would just give up and ring off. Ms Beach had asked the operator, (when she was finally connected) how many people were on duty but the contact at the centre had been reluctant to reply. Ms Bourne said that the staff member genuinely wouldn't have known as the control and command centre deals with 999 and 101. If there is an influx of emergency calls then more lines will be switched to 999 and there will be fewer taking 101 calls. Clearly the system wasn't working and what was needed was more staff – it was the only way forward. Currently the Sussex police are running trials on digital reporting over 12 months in Sussex and Surrey which is proving much quicker. The average response time for 101 is 10 minutes. Boxgrove Parish Council Minutes 4th June 2018 Page 2 Mr Tim Russell 's experience (North Mundham) had been 40 minutes with messages asking you to email or go on line or call back later. Question 6 – Jim McDonald Boxgrove Traffic Calming Group Mr McDonald said that Boxgrove has been doing the CSW since last October and on average 4000 vehicles a day pass through Boxgrove. He said that initially the group had to go into Chichester to "borrow" the approved speed gun from the police, come all the way back use it and then return it to Chichester. To avoid this waste of time the group self-funded a £500 speed gun. Other groups will be facing this same cost. Secondly the group bought some posters to put up which had a very positive effect on speed reduction, but they were removed. This issue needs to be resolved - the posters had an impact. Thirdly, the PCSO Jason Lemm only found one location in the village that fitted the over-strict criteria established by the police. The group felt that other locations were suitable. These checks need to be actioned quicker and the rules and regulations relaxed to allow people to start. Ms Bourne said that she would like to see some of the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership funds (gained through Speed Awareness courses) used for funding speed guns in villages. Action Katy Bourne As for the posters, they were not compliant, and Health and Safety precludes certain locations however stupid it seems to the TCG. Mr McDonald asked if the rules could be relaxed, or at least reviewed and the posters too. Action Katy Bourne Ms Bourne said that she would ask the SSRP. Question 7 Singleton PC Why can't average speed cameras be used? The costs could be shared between villages. Ms Bourne said that trials were also being run on these cameras in Brighton. The representative said that they had already been extensively trialled in Poole, why couldn’t the police share resources and use their data? It was ridiculous to try and stand out on the busy main road when technology could do the data logging. Question 8 Boxgrove Traffic Calming Group Mr McDonald said that three villages in the room owned a device with a data logger, but it required two people to be next to it, with sandbags on the device.