Joint effort for clean up day

Things are progressing well here in Norwich City Centre on the Safer Neighbourhood Team. I continue to thoroughly enjoy the consistent yet ever evolving challenge of commanding the Policing of such a busy and vibrant city.

In my last blog entry, I talked about the SNAP priorities. The public SNAP meeting took place on Monday 10th May 2010 as advertised and we had a strong attendance and an excellent discussion over issues that we have addressed and continue to work on, as well as some emerging challenges for the SNAP panel and also my team.

Essentially, we will continue to ensure that the progress with dealing with ‘Chuggers’, pedlars and beggars is maintained as an ongoing concern although it’s no longer a priority, as attendees felt we had made good progress and were happy to select an alternative priority.

The ‘Priority Area’ within the triangle area: King Street, Rouen Road and the Lady Julian Bridge which concerned anti-social behaviour, has also seen good progress. But it was acknowledged that more work could be done in relation to King Street and other routes away from the Night Time Economy area of Prince of Wales Road into the early hours of the morning.

In relation to some of the work already completed on this priority, we undertook a well publicised ‘Paint-out’ day for graffiti on Lion and Castle Yard, as well as the Rose Lane car park on Monday 24th May 2010. This included help and support from the Tesco Express Management, who supplied staff to paint walls and other equipment, Norwich City Council, pupils from the Notre Dame School, John Lewis staff, the City Centre Partnership and Market Traders from the covered market who provided food and refreshments. The day was a huge success.

We have now adopted 3 priorities following this work which are available on the City Centre SNT priorities page.

In relation to crime we continue to consistently reduce crime in the City Centre and we are currently experiencing 16% fewer crimes than we were at this point last year, which is an excellent result. We are enhancing partnership working with retailers, pubs, clubs, bars, and Norwich City Council among many others to make this happen and we continue to refine and improve this effective working relationship and continue to drive down crime in our city.

Forthcoming challenges lie in School Holiday times – ensuring that people are aware of our increased presence during the day in the busiest areas and also in the evenings at the most important times. I have ensured that the media are well briefed on our plans and are able to maximise our publicity to ensure that as many people as possible don’t make a mistake that could have a negative impact on their lives.

I will be updating this blog every 2 weeks now, so you will get a more regular update from me – I look forward to writing again soon.