Southfield's Police team nearly up to full strength

At the local Southfield police panel meeting tonight it was their AGM. There was a good chance to hear from the local police team what they have done over the year and what changes there will be to the police in Southfield, Chiswick.

The items I noted down included...

1. Police team nearly back up to full strength and the Lib Dem petition
You might be aware of the petition set up by the Southfield Liberal Democrats to get ensure that our area had a team of six led by a sergeant who does not have to share his time between other wards.

Tonight we had good news that we now have 5.75 officers (up from about 4 previously). We have two PCs, 3 PCSOs and our sergeant share some of his time assisting the police team in South Acton. The petition was set up and since then we have collected about 650 signatures. Thank you to all those who signed our petition.

Gary Busuttil and Lib Dem Councillors bump into the police

2. Crimes of the last year

Recent increase in cycle crime and thefts from vehicles. Our PC said that many examples were where people have either left their bikes insecure or left on show items in the cars which will have attracted criminals to breaking into those cars.  Recently there had been a large number of break ins to BMWs due to problems with a device that was used to assist criminals gaining access. The local police team contacted owners in the area with BMWs to inform them of how to reduce the chances of their car being accessed. It even gained some coverage on BBC's Watchdog! Well done.


3. Gary Busuttil elected onto the Southfield ward Safer Neighbourhood Panel
At the AGM tonight, resident and crime fighter, Gary Busuttil, was chosen to be a member of the police panel. At the end of the meeting we spoke and he said: "My aim over the next year with the help of the rest of the panel, is to set up a Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) on Steele Road, which is one of the few roads in the ward without a NHW. Living in Steele Road for four years I want to see more people aware of the local police meetings and how they can help people to reduce the chance of them being a victim of crime.

Gary Busuttil fighting crime in Chiswick

4. Likely changes to policing next year
After many, many months of rumours and comment it appears that a number of changes will happen that should enable the police to deal more quickly with serious crime as well as the less urgent crimes as well.

Basically it will mean that there will be less "blue light" teams to investigate 999 calls. Instead they would ONLY investigate top priority crimes such as murder, gun/knife attacks, robbery, domestic violence etc.

Then there will be more police added to the local teams who will then deal with the current types of cases plus the less urgent 999 calls. This should mean that urgent call get a faster response as well as local teams being better resourced so that they can deal with non urgent but important matters. We will see how this plays out next year, but it appears in Southfield we will get extra police.