By Inspector Maxine Cilia
I hope that you all had a good Christmas or festive celebra-tion, and I would like to start this by wishing everyone a happy and safe new year.
I always hope that your new year resolutions will include things such as “I must join my local neighbourhood watch group”, or “how will I make a difference in my local community” because in my many years of policing I have seen that good resilient communi-ties are the most safe and successful.
We are lucky in Spelthorne to have so many great Neighbourhood Watch Groups, but there are al-ways room for more. Surrey Police are also lucky to have so many volunteers who work with us on a daily basis including volunteers in our offices, engagement and of course our Specials and soon to be Cadets. I would like to thank publicly every one of our Police volunteers and Community Volun-teers for the valuable work they do.
So looking back on 2021, Surrey Police Safer Neighbourhood Teams worked hard to make your communities safer as always.
• In particular we obtained a 3 year CBO on Ste-ven Breen, who was committing ASB and crime in the area and he has conditions not to enter the ma-jority of the Spelthorne area
• Worked with the council to place temporary parking restrictions in Studios Road to ease the congestion and reduce accidents in the area. Hope-fully this will become a more permanent solution in the new year.
• Completed a number of closures on property to protect some vulnerable people and securing them from being cuckooed and from threats of drug related harm.
• Worked with the landowners to stop the use of anti-social moped riders in roads in Sheep Walk, Shepperton.
• We managed to get involved and implement a Sport Pathway Initiative to use for diversion for our youths in the local area and hope to apply for further funding to keep this running.
• Worked on a long term Community Problem Solving project to make Sunbury Cross a better place to be in. This is on going and we look for-ward to applying for funding in the future to secure some changes.
• Seen a reduction in dwelling burglaries by 24% on last year which was already in reduction. This included an initiative which we trialled in Ashford and hope to replicate if we see any hotspots of burglary in this area.
• See an reduction in ASB across the Spelthorne overall especially in the Sunbury area where we have worked tirelessly with all agencies and Met-ropolitan Police to put measures in place and speak to youth and their parents who have identified in the area causing concern.
• We have a new NSO for Sunbury now who will dedicated to the area. PC Seb Rutkowski is now fully in place to continue the work already started in this local area.
• We have secured two new ANPR cameras to be put in Staines Town, to assist with on going anti-social driving in Mustard Mill Road. This is after lots of ongoing work to ensure s.59 notices have been given out for anti social driving of vehicle which means that after a warning police can seize the vehicle.
This is without all the successful arrests and prose-cutions we have had which included arrest for thefts from vehicle, arrests for bag and purse thefts and another persistent criminal damage where a street was under siege from stones being thrown at their property plus so much more.
Sometimes we forget to tell you about all the work we complete and the successes and only tell you about the things to look out for, so I am hoping that by celebrating the successes of last year with you we can start this year on a positive and continue with all our hard work to make your communities safe. I shall keep reporting to you our successes in this magazine and on social media and I ask that you support us by continuing to report crime and let us know what is happening in your area.
Contact us https://www.surrey.police.uk/ or via 101, Crimestoppers https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information 0800 555 111
Maxine Cilia
Spelthorne Borough Commander
Maxine.Cilia@surrey.pnn.police.uk
Mobile Tel 07967988468
Landline 01483 631676