Springfield Weekly Update
Crimes in Springfield:
We have had 33 crimes for the week. This is about right for what we average a week.
There were no robberies or burglaries. We had 7 vehicle crime offences – these are two smash and grabs where property has been left on display. We would urge motorists to ensure they do not leave property behind.
There were 6 violent crimes, three of these are domestic related. If you are or know someone suffering from dv please get in touch with us or Birmingham & Solihull Women’s Aid on 0121 685 8687, we really do want to help.
Local priorities:
Parking continues to be a big problem – we have had numerous calls, emails about cars being parked inconsiderately. You may have seen on social media – on our twitter account @spingfieldWMP or Cllr Shabrana Hussain’s Facebook page the photo of the car which is parked across the pavement and you can see a disabled person who can’t get past – that was disgraceful parking – the owner has been visited and warned.
We have issued a number of tickets and visited various roads to speak to drivers. We know we can’t solve the parking problems in the area but share your frustrations and are determined to ticket cars when we are on duty.
You may be aware from recent media coverage that the team had a car seized during the week for repeatedly parking on the pavement, the owner had already been issued with a number of fixed penalty notices.
We have had some reports of begging on Stratford Road near the junction of Newton Road, we would advise not to give anything but to contact us via 101 or alternatively you can alert the charity Streetlink to any rough sleepers viawww.streetlink.org by calling 0300 500 0914 or by using the Streetlink app.
Team’s activities:
As a team we have carried out targeted patrols both in uniform and plain clothes in Bankside, Windermere playing fields, Swanshurst Park and Stratford Road.
The early part of the week was taken with patrols around Swanshurst Park and assisting Birmingham City Council with evictions of travellers.
We have carried out a number of visits to offenders – to you give a flavour of the sort of offenders we are working with – Male, aged 36 with a long history of unemployment, drug and alcohol dependency. Male
We have visited 3 of our 17 hostels so far this week. These have been to see specific individuals who cause us concerns.
We have visited all 5 mobile phone shops in Springfield. We do this weekly and ask the staff to show us which used phones have been purchased and to show documentation etc and we run these through a national database to check if they are stolen, we pick a phone at random at each of these shops. We are pleased to say that the shops are generally excellent.
Officers also met with staff at Moseley School this week as part of our regular engagement. We enjoy a fantastic relationship with not just Moseley School but all 9 of the primary schools on Springfield and have a number of events/ inputs planned in the coming months at various schools. These typically centre around bullying and cyber-bullying, knife crime and crime in general. The team will also be giving talks to yr6 pupils about their step up to secondary school.
PCSO Rachel Ryan has been busy setting up a number of Neighbourhood Watch Schemes (NHW) – so far we are looking at Swanhurst Lane, Berkley Crescent and Bankside. Neighbourhood Watch is one of the most popular and successful crime prevention schemes and is built on the simple idea that by getting together with your neighbours, you can take positive action to help cut local crime.
It gives people the opportunity to work in partnership with their neighbours, the police and other agencies and make a real difference to their community through the same shared objectives:
· cut crime and the opportunities for crime
· help and reassure those who live in the area
· encourage neighbourliness and bring communities together.
There are many benefits to setting up or joining a Neighbourhood Watch scheme including:
Neighbourhood Watch schemes are community initiatives that are supported by the police but not owned or run by them. If you are interested in setting a scheme up please do get in touch.
And finally:
PCSO Stapleton and PC’s Jones and Duffy each received Neighbourhood Policing Unit Awards as recognition of their outstanding work within the Springfield ward.
How to contact us:
Phone: 101
Email:
Twitter: @springfieldWMP