Community safety patrols to be extended

July 7, 2020

Further support for the council’s community safety unit this summer is to be brought in.

Four staff from Stambridge, the council’s security contractors, have already been providing weekend support to the council’s community safety unit in recent weeks, funded through the agreed budget to provide additional winter and summer support in 2020/21.

The additional support of four more, making eight extra in total, will be primarily used to target later community safety unit shifts on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights up until the end of September, but will be flexible and also available to meet demands on other days and times.

They will be in place to provide a reassuring visual presence across the Borough, giving Essex Police and the council’s community safety unit more time to focus on priority areas and work. They will liaise with Police on the town link radio system and via other community safety officers on duty and also through the council’s out of hours call centre which operates 24/7.

In addition to the extra staff, the council will also be filling an operations coordinator role that will liaise directly with Essex Police, coordinating different community safety projects across the Borough.

Cllr Martin Terry, cabinet member for community safety and customer contact, said: “As we begin to welcome people safely back to our Borough, we are absolutely committed to keeping them safe and well and ensure that their experience of Southend-on-Sea is a positive one. Our community safety officers already work closely with Essex Police to provide a visual presence, to keep people safe and tackle incidents of anti-social behaviour.

“Our security contractor Stambridge have supported us excellently so far, and further support will really make a difference to local people too. In the longer-term we are looking at how enforcement works across individual teams and how we can improve that coordinated offer, but we feel we also need extra bodies out and about right now.

“The Stambridge officers will free up community safety officers to focus on priority and hotspot areas across the Borough that have seen isolated but irresponsible incidents and issues that affect the local community.

“There is also a growing need for community safety officers to be mobile so they can respond to issues across the borough. The team has no dedicated vehicle which makes getting across the Borough quickly difficult and mobilising the team less effective, so we are also looking to lease a suitable vehicle for three years.

“In total this is a £146,000 investment into community safety up to April 2021 which will be funded through the approved business transformation reserve.”

If you need to report anti-social behaviour, please contact Essex Police on 101.