85% of people happy with the Police

We have received the following letter from the top Police Officer in Bath and North East Somerset, Chief Superintendent Gary Davies:

He states that, “I want to make this letter as interesting and useful as possible and so I thought that having some facts on how well your area is doing in terms of crime reduction, crime detection and the levels of satisfaction of people who use your police service would be quite useful. I therefore intend to cover each of these areas on a regular basis and include some basic commentary to provide a context for the figures which in isolation can be difficult to interpret.

• Total Crime -6.7% reduction compared to last year.
• Crime Detections 34.6% to date
• Customer Satisfaction 85.5% at the end of April.

Total Crime
The current 6.7% reduction when compared to last year is excellent. Most people thought that the economic recession was going to cause an increase but at the moment overall crime continues to fall as do house burglaries and vehicle crime. Violent crime is under some pressure but early in the crime year with low numbers means it can change rapidly in either direction. We are however carrying out some analysis to ensure we understand the problem

Crime Detections
I am pleased to see that we have the highest crime detection rates in the Force by some distance. The current 34.6% is the highest it has ever been although it has to be said we are only two months into the crime year.

Customer Satisfaction
I am very pleased with our customer satisfaction results they are noticeably up on last year and recent results show that the additional support we are providing for victims of crime in supplying much more information about the progress of their case has gone down very well.

Read the rest of this entry.

Announcement on Woolies due

An announcement is due to be made on Monday morning about the future of the former Woolworths store on Moorland Road in Bath.

Traders in the area have seen activity over the last week in the shop which closed in January after more than 40 years of business.

The premises, which is owned by a private pension fund, has been linked to all manner of high street retailers.

A spokesman for Alder King, the Bristol-based agent marketing the property, said a deal was likely to be completed by Monday which would see the introduction of a ‘well known brand’ into Moorland Road.

Car crime on First Avenue

Between 10pm on Monday 1st June and 7am the next day, unknown person/s have smashed the front passenger window of a motor car and removed property from within.

If you have any information regarding this incident, please contact the Police on 0845 456 7000. Alternatively you could contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Next PACT meeting – 17th June 2009

Partners and Communities Together (PACT) gives you a chance to meet the team and influence priorities in your neighbourhood.

Current public priorities were established on 8th October 2008:

1. Misuse of the memorial gardens, including vandalism and drinking.

2. Builders’ lorries causing obstructions early in the mornings, irresponsible parking outside Grahams and Oldfield Road, parking on the Green Hill Side.

3. Litter.

Outcomes

Misuse of the memorial gardens, including vandalism and drinking

Increased visibility and patrols in the area. Local traders and representatives of the communities and councillors informed. Action plan is being implemented.

Builders’ lorries causing obstructions early in the mornings, irresponsible parking outside Grahams and Oldfield Road, parking on the Green Hill Side

Continuous monitoring by police of vehicles causing obstructions.

Litter

B&NES do a once a month scheduled litter pick / mechanical sweep in the Oldfield area. They also monitor the area on a regular basis and have found the area to be no worse for litter than anywhere else.

Next public meeting is on 17th June 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at Moorlands Infant School, Moorland Road, Bath.

Please come along on the 17th June and raise the issues that you think the Police, Somer Housing and the Council should be tackling in Oldfield. We have been working hard with local partners to get action on the issues raised at the last meeting

If you’re unable to attend the meeting itself, please email me (shaun_mcgall@bathnes.gov.uk) with any issues which are important to you and a list of your Top Three local priorities for the partners to tackle. We will make sure your views are heard and counted at the meeting.

Public meeting held to discuss plans for Care Home at the Englishcombe Inn

On Thursday 28th May 2009, a public meeting was organised by Cedar Care House at the request of us to discuss their revised planning application for the conversion of the Englishcombe Inn Public House to a 40 bed care home.

Cllr Sandry chaired the meeting where local residents and former regulars of the Engishcombe Inn questioned the developers, Cedar Care Homes, and their architects on their revised plans following comments and questions from local residents as well as the comments and views of the Council’s planners following the rejection of their first application.

Questions were asked about the highways access, parking, the plant room, as well as the proposed landscaping and the obvious loss of the community access of a public house.

 The developer informed the meeting that they hoped to submit a revised planning application in the next couple of weeks.

Cllr McGall informed the local residents present how the planning process worked and informed the meeting that notice of the planning application would be posted on this website, as well as in the Bath Chronicle.

Local residents and previous regulars of the Engishcombe Inn were asked to copy in their local councillors to representations to the Council’s Planning Department on this revised application.

Theft at the Oval

Between 4 and 7pm on Sunday May the 24th, unknown person(s) have removed items that had been left outside the front door of a residence.

If you have any information regarding this incident, please contact the Police on 0845 456 7000. Alternatively you could contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Crackdown launched on Oldfield Park street drinkers

Police in Oldfield Park have begun to crack down on street drinkers in the area. Local traders have joined us in praising the police team in the area for their efforts in tackling the problem.

Unfortunately, drinkers had been congregating in the Memorial Garden in Third Avenue, but the problem had escalated in the past few months since police decided to take a zero tolerance approach to street drinking in the city centre. Many residents in Oldfield Park said the ban had just driven drunks out of the city centre and on to our doorsteps.

In the past few weeks police had been working hard to resolve the problem. We have been working with the Police and the Moorland Road Association to tackle the issue.

Our local Police team including Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Paul Spreadbury and PCSO Katrina Moore, have increased their patrols in the area and we are encouraging local residents to call the Police if they have any problems.

Anyone who wishes to contact the police should do so on 0845 456 7000.

Meanwhile the Oldfield Park Partners and Communities Together (PACT) meeting will take place on Wednesday, June 17 at Moorlands Infant School from 6.30pm. PACT meetings allow people the chance to have their say on issues affecting their neighbourhood and their quality of life – from litter and noise to street lighting and anti-social behaviour.

Home to School Transport Scrutiny Panel Report – Cabinet Response

Frustration and anger at last Monday’s Meeting of The Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel

The Panel undertook a cross-party review of “Home to School Transport” and presented its reccomendations to the Cabinet member responsible earlier this year. At Monday’s Meeting of the Panel the Cabinet member’s response to the recommendations were received and discussed.

See this Link for full table of reccommendations and Cabinet member response: http://tiny.cc/RESPONSE733

Overall, the Cabinet’s response to the review is disappointing, and gave no real timescales as to when anything would or could be implemented. For instance the Cabinet member Cllr Chris Watts failed to accept the idea of a pilot “Green Bus” scheme, stating that ”a public transport provider cannot be favoured by the Council”.

The idea of a £10 per week bus ticket was accepted as a good idea, but the Panel was told by Cllr Watts the Schools Forum would have to discuss this first, and as with other reccomendations, no timescales for action/implementation were forthcoming. After a proposal from the Labour Member on the Panel it was decided that Cllr Watt would come back to the Panel in July, when the Panel, if still dissatisfied with the responses, could opt to refer it to the Full Council September meeting for an open debate.

It is surely not a good day for participatory local government to hear on the one hand that substantial numbers of residents like the parents who campaigned so committedly on this issue over many months, feel disillusioned and largely unheard. And on the other, the work and reccomendations of the Cross-Party Scrutiny Panel has not been valued and taken on board to any significant extent by this Conservative Administration.

For further views see the story on the Bath Chronicle website: http://tinyurl.com/qvho6w

Bath BRT vote: further Lib Dem reaction

B&NES planning committee decided last night to defer the planning application for the Newbridge Park and Ride and Bath Bus Rapid Transit Route (BRT) in order to request more information.

On the whole this is a good result. The committee’s decision is a vindication of the campaign that Councillors and residents have been running for months now.

The news this morning that the Council will be looking more thoroughly at the design of the scheme is welcome; however the Council must finally look properly at the alternatives, as we have been asking all along.

Bath MP Don Foster commented:

When I attended a Council Overview & Scrutiny panel meeting in September last year, I argued that consultation with residents had been poor and that there hadn’t been satisfactory work conducted into alternative routes. To date I am still not convinced that this work has been done.

I hope that this deferment will allow the Conservative Council to go away and conduct real research into all the options. We want to see a proper case put forward.

Had this research been conducted correctly in the first place we wouldn’t be in this position. Let us hope that the Tory failure to follow correct processes does not end up costing Bath £50million of government money.