New community safety officers start their work

October 18, 2018 by Southend Borough Council

New Community Safety officers have started work in Southend-on-Sea this week.

Working across a seven-day week, the six new uniformed officers will support the Police and other agencies across central Southend. 

After an induction and training day on Monday, officers joined Southend BID Rangers for their first patrols on Tuesday. They will be shadowing the Rangers initially and into next week.

The interim team has been put in place following the High Street summit that was held on Monday 24 September, with the process to recruit a permanent team, including a Community Safety team manager already underway.  This follows agreement of additional funding for community safety resources earlier this year. 

The team will provide reassurance and visibility within the town centre area, as well as providing more official resource to engage with and encourage rough sleepers to take up the support available to them. The team will also report incidents and build up a picture of anti-social behaviour and help all agencies to develop plans to address them.

Work to consider a process that would allow the council, BID and police to tackle unattended items left in private doorways and the public highway is also underway.  A campaign aimed at encouraging shoppers to donate to local charity, instead of giving their change to people begging will also launch at the end of this month.

Cllr James Courtenay, Deputy Leader of the Council, said: “We cannot solve all the issues we face in the town centre overnight, but we know that local people and businesses want to see a more visible presence in central Southend-on-Sea.

“These new officers will support the important activity already underway by police offices and BID street rangers and will provide increased reassurance and uniformed support and presence across the entire week.

“This shows that we are taking the issues we face seriously and are moving at pace following the High Street summit.” 

Chief Inspector Neil Pudney, District Commander for Southend said: “The investment in and introduction of these new officers is brilliant news. We already have a strong & vibrant Community Safety Hub with police & partner agencies co-located working together on joint proactive initiatives. That Partnership Team will now become even stronger and I look forward to working closely with this new team to deal with the local issues and concerns that really affect our communities.”

Dawn Jeakings, Chair and Director of Southend BID, commented: “I hope the new officers are able to make a positive impact in a short space of time. We’re heading into an important time for the High Street and seafront areas, with the firework spectaculars already underway and a series of events taking place in Southend-on-Sea before the annual Lights Switch-On, signalling the beginning of the run-in to Christmas and the New Year. These events bring huge numbers of people into the town, so having the Community Safety team working in partnership with the police and Southend BID Rangers comes at just the right time.”