PACT meeting – What did you miss?

On Wednesday evening, representatives from SOnews attended the Police and Communities Together (PACT) meeting, hosted by the Police Neighbouring team. The meeting was held at Hightown Fire Station and was focussed on the areas of Bitterne, Sholing and Thornhill.

Other than us, and the police of course, there was a strong Council presence. It was also good to see local residents and representatives from other organisations there too; all round, it was a good mix of people.

The aim of these meetings is to bring the Police, the Council and the Community together with a view to working more collaboratively in order to tackle crime in the area. There’s such a broad range of crimes happening all over, and although it’d be lovely to wave a wand to rid of it all, that’s simply not possible. Instead, statistics are scrutinised, risks are considered, and two or three crime types then become the focus.

For Bitterne, Sholing and Thornhill, the two crime types that will be focussed on for the next three months are drug related crime and motor vehicle crime.

The two crime types highlighted probably won’t come as a surprise to locals. However, we did also raise the point about ASB being rife, a point reinforced in our recent online poll. As a consequence, this will also be a focus point for the police and council. However, we do need to drill down further into ASB categories, so we may canvass for more resident input soon.

All in all, the meeting went well and it was clear that action points were being noted based on thoughts provided. What was also evident from the start is that our local Neighbourhood Policing team really do care about the area they serve. We’ve encouraged them to share more success stories with us, which in time, we hope, will give a renewed confidence that things can and do get achieved. Ultimately, they can only do what they can do with the resources available to them; that’s a whole new subject though and we won’t go into it for now.

To end this, thank you to all of those who did attend. Thank you too to those who took time to share their thoughts online prior to the meeting; every voice and every opinion matters.

The next PACT meeting is for the areas of Woolston, Peartree, Weston and Merryoak. It’ll be held on Tuesday 8 February at Weston Court from 18:45.