Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Director of Service Delivery, (copy enclosed) and receive a presentation from the Community Safety Manager.

The Committee received the report of the Director of Service Delivery reporting the progress of activities undertaken by the Maldon Community Safety Partnership (CSP) since the last meeting held on 12 October 2023.

The most recent Essex Police performance summary (to January 2024) was attached as Appendix 1 to the report.

The Community Safety Manager (CSM) took Members through the report and provided additional information and further detail by way of a presentation.

A lengthy discussion ensued during which a number of points were raised and in response the following information was provided:

·        Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) had seen a reduction in the Maldon District since the pandemic ended, however, other areas of ASB such as environmental crime and fly tipping could be addressed better by the offences being reported to the right agency. The CSM explained to Members further that reporting a persistent noise nuisance to Police would be redundant as this would need to be addressed by the local authority or in some cases the social housing landlord.

·        Youth ASB had seen a year-on-year reduction and it was felt this was achieved due to the interventions put in place and the ongoing collaboration with the Youth Service.

·        Chief Inspector (CI) Ballard made Members aware that since August last year, Essex Police had moved over to a different risk assessment model to improve how they treat and dealt with victims of domestic abuse. He went on to add that this was reflected in the statistics due to cases that were previously standard would now be medium resulting in medium cases going up and standard cases seeing a reduction.

·        The increase of burglaries in the Maldon District was addressed, highlighting the impact to communities in rural areas, the CSM and CI Ballard were keen to meet with Members whose ward areas had been affected to discuss this further.

·        Shoplifting had seen an increase in the District and Members drew special attention to the Blackwater Retail Park where a number of shops were being targeted. The CSM was keen to engage with the Retail park owners to see what deterrents could be put in place. He went on to add that the site could benefit from a visit from the Essex Police Business Crime Team.

·        The CSM had recently met with the Counter Terrorism Manager from Bedfordshire Police to arrange for a survey of Maldon promenade which would involve looking at hostile vehicle mitigation measures and hoped this would take place around April this year. Completing this survey would ensure the Council meets it obligations as the landowner and would also put them in good stead for when the Martins Law detailed guidance is released in spring this year.

·        Maldon will have its own Women’s Safety Charter similar to Chelmsford.

·        Members of the public could view crime information on the Essex Police Website.

·        The CSM wanted to introduce a piece of work around men’s mental health “on your team” to the Maldon District after its success in Chelmsford. The piece of work  ...  view the full minutes text for item 506

To consider the report of the Director of Service Delivery, (copy enclosed) and receive a presentation from the Community Safety Manager.

The Committee received the report of the Director of Service Delivery reporting the progress of activities undertaken by the Maldon Community Safety Partnership (CSP) since the last meeting held on 2 March 2023.

The most recent Essex Police performance summary (to July 2023) was attached as Appendix 1 to the report.

The Community Safety Manager (CSM) took Members through the report and provided additional information and further detail by way of a presentation.

The Chairperson then moved the recommendation as set out in the report and this was duly seconded.

A lengthy discussion ensued during which a number of points were raised and in response the following information was provided:

•                  It was confirmed that domestic violence cases since the COVID 19 Pandemic have been on a steady decline and there had also been a significant reduction in high and medium risk offences taking place. This reduction was aided by the ongoing efforts of Essex Police to not only help the victims of domestic violence but also educate the perpetrators. The CSM also wanted Members to note that the #Reflect programme that was launched last year had received an award for its work in challenging people’s perception/behaviour around domestic abuse.

•           The continued presence of Essex Police and partner agencies on the roads along with the use of number plate recognition and the spot checking of waste carrier licenses should drive down any potential fly tipping risk in the area.

•           The youth project run by the Community Voluntary Services (CVS) and funded by the Essex Violence and Vulnerability Unit has been in Maldon for the past 18 months and is scheduled to be rolled out in Southminster next. Hot spots will then be identified and Subject to funding the availability of volunteers will be pushed out into those areas. The CSM made Members aware that post pandemic there has been a reduction in the volunteers available to aide these initiatives.

•           Due to the costs involved in creating a CCTV network there aren’t currently any plans for extending this into rural hot spot areas. There have been trials in other parts of Essex using mobile data connection to stream CCTV and this could potentially be rolled out in these hot spot areas.

•                  The Minerva Mapping tool is currently for profession use only, however; Essex County Council (ECC) released a mapping tool running from July 2023 to January 2024 that encourages women to pin point locations where they feel unsafe and how these areas could be made to feel safer.

The Chairperson requested that the following link to the aforementioned mapping tool be included in the minutes for the meeting:

•      Commonplace.

There being no further discussion the Chairperson put the recommendation to the Committee and it was agreed by assent.

RESOLVED that the current progress of the initiatives undertaken by the Community Safety Partnership be noted.