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St Albans Community Safety Partnership Plan 2010/11

Introduction:

This Partnership Plan outlines the key priorities for the Community Safety Partnership for 2010/11 it is based on an assessment of crime, anti social behaviour and drug and alcohol misuse in the district.

The Community Safety Plan for 2010-11 aims to build a safer St Albans through addressing these four aims;

• Preventing and reducing crime, in particular dwelling burglary, theft of and from motor vehicle, theft from person, theft from shop, robbery and drug dealing.
• Preventing and reducing anti social behaviour
• Protecting vulnerable people
• Managing offenders
• Promoting the work of the partnership and increasing public confidence.

Underpinning all of the above is the Partnership’s ability to respond to emerging issues quickly.

Members of the Community Safety Partnership are;

St Albans City and District Hertfordshire County Council
Hertfordshire Constabulary Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service
Hertfordshire Police Authority Primary Care Trust
Hertfordshire Probation Service Hertfordshire Youth Offending Team.

In addition the Partnership will occasionally work with other agencies such as British Transport Police, First Capital Connect, Central Herts Magistrates Bench, Crown Prosecution Service, Trading Standards and Housing Associations.

The Community Safety Plan needs to contribute to local and county strategies to have maximum effect. For this reason it not only contributes to but also reflects the priorities of the Local Strategic Partnership’s Sustainable Community Strategy, the wider Hertfordshire Community Strategy, the Police Authority Plan and all of the plans of the Partnership member agencies. Full details of these plans are available on request from the Community Safety Team 01727 819305 or at www.stalbanscsp.org.uk.

Preventing and reducing crime.

The Partnership will concentrate on reducing the crimes highlighted above by continuing with initiatives and activity aimed at deterring and detecting criminals such as Operation Guardian, Operation Sentinel and Operation Crystal. The Partnership will continue to focus on targeting a small majority of offenders who carry out a large proportion of all crime. It will also continue to target resources at providing information on how to reduce the chances of becoming a victim of crime.

Preventing and reducing anti social behaviour (ASB)

St Albans City and District has some of the lowest levels of anti- social behaviour in the County and the Country. The Partnership realises that where this behaviour does occur it is very distressing for the victims. Actions to prevent ASB escalating include education, mediation and family based support and projects such as Onside football schemes and outreach projects such as the Fire Services LIFE Project. However where necessary, the Partnership will not hesitate to use enforcement measures and apply for Court Orders, injunctions and Anti Social Behaviour Orders.

A number of measures have been undertaken in previous years by the Partnership to tackle alcohol related anti social behaviour. As a result incidents of this nature are quite low in the district; however there are some pockets that require further attention and action. The Partnership will continue to target these locations to do more to reduce and prevent further incidents.

Protecting vulnerable people

The Partnership strives to protect the most vulnerable people in its communities. As part of this it will undertake activity to help a wide range of vulnerable people including victims of domestic violence, the elderly and communities at risk of becoming targeted by radical or extremist activity. The Partnership will continue to monitor any hate crimes and incidents taking swift action.

Managing Offenders

Drug misusers often turn to committing crimes acquisitive crime like shoplifting, and theft to fund their drug habit. The Partnership will continue to focus on Prolific and Other Priority Offenders (PPO’s); they have been indentified as the small minority of offenders that carry out the large proportion of crime. The Partnership will ensure that the PPO’s in the district are managed in line with the Hertfordshire PPO Strategy, including continuing to work with the County C2 project. The project targets the most persistent offenders by offering training and work to break the cycle of offending.

The Partnership will continue to educate people about drugs and alcohol in line with national campaigns and the Hertfordshire Drugs Strategy. It will continue to engage the local media and undertake work in schools and colleges. It will continue to work to share information and eliminate the supply of drugs as well as ensuring that information about help and treatment services is available to those who need it.

Promoting the work of the partnership and increasing feelings of public confidence

Hertfordshire is one of the safest counties in England and St Albans is one of the safest districts in the County. The Partnership will continue to promote public awareness of the range of activities which are being carried out to tackle crime, anti social behaviour and drug and alcohol misuse. It will engage with the public by publishing its quarterly newsletter in the local newspaper, keeping its website up to date and undertaking regular press releases about success stories and how to get involved.

The Partnership will give local communities the opportunity to indentify projects where offenders can pay back their debt to society by improving the environment through visible Community Payback Projects.

The Partnership’s Performance in 2009/10

For the period April 2008 - March 2009 crime fell by 6% or 570 fewer crimes compared with the previous year. The table below shows the performance of the Partnership against key crime types from April – Dec 09 and compares it with the same period the previous year showing that all crime is down 8.8%.

[Table not reproduced on this website]

Planning ahead

The Partnership is keen that any projects undertaken are sustainable and produce long term effects wherever possible. In addition Equality Impact Assessments will be conducted on all implemented projects which will consider all six strands of the Equalities agenda.

Richard Shwe, Head of Culture and Community Development at St Albans City and District Council, said: “As part of the new development at Westminster Lodge, the Council has undertaken a geophysical survey of the proposed development site. Twelve trenches, including two pairs which were joined and L-shaped, have been excavated. Approximately five of the evaluation trenches produced stratified archaeological deposits.

The main features found in the trenches include a Roman building, possibly a mill, which appears to have been partially demolished in the Roman or medieval period for building materials. It may be associated with part of a building found in a previous dig on Holywell Hill in 1968 which was further excavated in 2007.

In addition, a ditch has been found close by which could be the leat to a mill. The preliminary dating of these features is 2nd to the 3rd century AD. Evidence suggests that the building may have had painted walls and a solid concrete floor.

These two features lie in an area that will be soft landscaped and will be preserved in situ. They will not be affected by the development. The trenches in which they were found have been backfilled for reasons of health and safety.

The building is of local significance but can not be defined as of national significance or of great visual interest as it is not intact. Further, the finds do not constitute treasure as defined under the Treasure Act.*

Other finds included prehistoric flints, possibly dating from the Late Mesolithic to Early Neolithic periods, circa 4,000BC.
Pits and layers of archaeological deposits from the Roman period or later have also been discovered and additional work will be carried out to investigate these further.

NOTE: Information on what constitutes treasure under the Treasure Act 1996 is set out at on the website of the Portable Antiquities Scheme at http://www.finds.org.uk/treasure/treasure_summary.php.
A definition of treasure is given at pages 5-18 of The Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice, issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Keep the pothole reports coming in!

Meanwhile, I have spoken to Herts Highways about various troublespots. One of these is the Victoria Street rail bridge. This is scheduled for urgent works, but Network Rail need to give permission. It is never easy in practice dealing with railway companies and so the emergency treatment may not be as early as any of us would like.

For more, follow this link:

http://tinyurl.com/ybqwxs7

This is your chance to have your say direct to the managers. In the past they have BANNED the press from attending (so much for real accountability) and have brought the British Transport Police along for protection - an abuse of police powers, frankly.

Don’t be intimidated by these tactics!

Make sure they hear loud and clear the messages we and others are delivering loud and clear to the Government - that we don’t want First Group on this railway and that we want a proper compensation package.

Seemingly an arcane topic, but Section 106 monies are those monies provided by developers to mitigate the impact of new houses.

Locally there are still funds available for works at the junction of Hatfield Road and Station Way: these could be used, for instance, to improve the cycle lane (rather short as it heads away from the station, despite the large numbers of cyclists who use this road) or to provide a box junction on Hatfield Road itself - there is clear evidence of the junction being blocked at peak time as cars queue across it.

There is also money which could be used on Watson’s Walk: residents have from time to time pointed out that there are no dropped kerbs on the route from the centre of town towards Cottonmill, despite the number of children who are escorted to St Peter’s School (with their younger siblings in push chairs). This is something that Herts Highways officials could look at again: although works could be expensive. The mini-roundabout at this point is particularly unfriendly to pedestrians.

Residents have been in contact to warn me that some of the work already done seems to be coming out. Herts Highways are aware of this and will ensure, they tell me, rectification.

LOCAL LIB DEMS PRESS FCC TOP MANAGEMENT ON COMPENSATION
- FCC agree to additional Meet The Managers meeting at Harpenden

Local Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidates Sandy Walkington for St Albans and Nigel Quinton for Hitchin & Harpenden joined senior Liberal Democrat MPs at Westminster yesterday for a private meeting with FCC top management, Mary Grant and Neal Lawson.

Sandy Walkington used the meeting to communicate the complete dissatisfaction of local travellers with the proposed compensation scheme, and particularly the inadequacy and complexity of the so-called Delay Repay. Nigel Quinton successfully requested that FCC hold a Meet the Managers session at Harpenden just as they are doing this Friday in St Albans.

Ms Grant told Sandy that they had already processed 73,000 delay repay schemes from across the Thameslink route, with many more coming in. She conceded that they would be flexible as possible, measuring the 30 minute delay against the original timetable and not the emergency one, waiving the normal time limits for claims, and accepting any evidence of payment – for example credit card bills – where the original tickets have been lost.

“I don’t like Delay Repay, it is wholly inadequate for short commuter journeys and it does not recognise the appalling overcrowding,” Sandy Walkington said. “But I hope that passengers will now inundate FCC with claims and at least get some additional compensation, albeit through a tediously bureaucratic process.”

Sandy also used the meeting to hammer home problems with inaudible announcements at West Hampstead, rude and offensive staff at St Pancras, and flakey text alerts. Ms Grant conceded that the whole passenger communications system was not fit for purpose in terms of dealing with major events and was being radically upgraded and overhauled.

Sandy concluded his contribution by telling her and Mr Lawson that they had to understand how deep they were “in the mire.” To have any chance of regaining passenger confidence, they will have to be perfect in every aspect – clean toilets, clean stations and rolling stock, excellent timekeeping, good real time communication, full length trains, staff there when you want them.

“First Group has the strapline ‘Transforming Travel’. Well they certainly did, but perhaps not as the advertising copywriters intended,” Sandy concluded. “It will be a long haul back, I’m still not sure FCC gets it, in which case steps should be taken to remove the franchise.”

ENDS

For more information please call Sandy Walkington on 07802 177317

Note to Editors:
Mary Grant, chair of FCC, and Neal Lawson, the new managing director, were there for the rail company. On the LibDem side, as well as Sandy and Nigel, there were Lib Dem shadow transport secretary Norman Baker MP, Paul Burstow MP and Tom Brake MP, both from constituencies served by Thameslink, and Lord Bill Bradshaw, former Director of Strategy for British Rail and now LibDem transport spokesman in the House of Lords.

I have raised the issue of unreliable bus services in the area with the County Council. Issues include: unpunctuality (even on Sundays when congestion cannot be blamed), infrequency and timetable bunching - where services are set within five or so minutes of each other as bus companies try to take each others’ business.

The privatisation of bus services by the Conservative Government was a terrible mistake. Bus ridership is rising nationally but only because the increase in ridership in London - which escaped privatisation - outweighs the decrease in the rest of the country. Interestingly, the proposals for the Abbey Line involve the county council being the rail operator rather than a private company. Personally I would like to see the principle extended and buses transferred back to county council control.

In the meantime, however, we are stuck with private operators where the county council can only use influence and subsidy. I am told that the council is keen to ensure that the intervals on main routes are limited to 15 minutes - so that people can arrive at a bus stop without worrying too much about the details of the timetable (not that timetables have much bearing on bus arrival in my experience).

There will also be real time information systems and in some cases improved bus stops.

All this is welcome but it is still a long way from what the service needs to be - something that everyone uses, not just those without access to cars.

Two Licensing Compliance Officers have been appointed to check that licensed premises are complying with the terms of their licences as part of a move to help reduce crime and disorder in St Albans City and District.

The two officers will also check that hackney carriage and private hire vehicles are operating within the terms of their licences.

The posts are being funded for a six-month trial period by St Albans City and District Council and Hertfordshire Constabulary, as part of the St Albans Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership.

The Licensing Compliance Officers will work mainly on Friday and Saturday evenings between 9pm and 4am supporting the police with their operations, providing guidance to licensees and licensed taxi drivers and operating as a point of contact for residents who may be concerned about pubs contravening the terms of their licences.

Their focus will be on reducing crime and disorder in hot spots identified via monthly assessments conducted by the Partnership.

Residents, licensed taxi drivers and licensees can contact the Licensing Compliance Officers about any issues they may have on a special hotline number (07770701720) that is available during their working hours at the weekend.

Councillor Anthony Rowlands, Portfolio Holder for Community Engagement and Support, said: “The high visibility presence of the Licensing Compliance Officers will help ensure that the licensing legislation is complied with and assist the police in controlling anti-social behaviour that affects local residents, businesses and visitors.

“Residents often complain that there is no one to call with their concerns about licensing activity out of office hours. Now they can alert these officers straight away by calling a special hotline number.”

St Albans Chief Inspector, Richard Hann, said: “St Albans and the surrounding District are already some of the safest places to go for a night out. We hope that the Partnership approach will help reduce the number of underage sales of alcohol and make licensees more responsible about serving people who have had too much to drink. Both of these things tend to increase anti-social behaviour. We hope that these appointments will help our already good relationship with licensees and make people enjoy an even better, trouble free, night out in St Albans.”