Agenda and minutes

·        Talk to your ward councillors

·        The Police

·        Give us your views on what is important to you in your community

·        What is missing for older and vulnerable residents in the ward and how can we bridge the gap – workshop and group discussion facilitated by Joe Micheli, Adult Social Care Commissioning Manager at City of York Council

·        Ward budget -  an update on recently funded projects and timetable for year 2017-18

·        Have your say

I.        Welcome

Cllr Warters opened the meeting by inviting Sgt Danny Leach from the York North Neighbourhood Policing Team to update residents on their work within the ward.

II.       Police update

Sgt Leach introduced himself to the residents as the newly appointed lead of the York North Team.  Tom Richardson introduced himself as being new to the force and appointed to work in the York North Team, he was also new to the role and was just settling in;  he worked alongside two other PCSO’s namely Rachel Simpson and Andy Smith.  

Sgt Leach explained how the Neighbourhood Policing Team had changed at the beginning of April.   Due to the increasing pressure on the Teams, Safeguarding and Vulnerability issues which required in depth risk assessment had been removed from their remit, in order that they could refocus on their core work of neighbourhood policing enabling them to have more time to meet and speak with people and engage with the community.  If people had any issues Tom, Rachel or Andy or he would be the main point of contact.  

Should there be serious problems other resources were available such as drawing officers from other teams to help deal with them rather than just sending a single PCSO.  He said that Osbaldwick and Derwent was a very safe place to live with low crime rates.  There had been the following crimes in 2017:

•        Vehicle Crime 1

•        Burglary 3

•        Anti Social Behaviour 39

He said that the team needed to know about issues being experienced by residents and that they needed to be reported.  

Q       A resident said that they had ‘heard it all before’  and how did he proposed to make a difference.  She also expressed concerns about the 101 phone service with frustrations regarding being put on hold and felt it discouraged people from using the service. 

A       Sgt Leach said that he understood people’s frustrations with the 101 service but that it was a national service which assessed and graded calls and allocated appropriate resources, but sometimes there may not been any resources available.   In an emergency 999 could be called.   He explained that there was sometimes a shortage of resources due to the policy of recruiting from within and PCSOs moving into the Police Force. 

Q       A resident asked how many PCSOs there were in the Greater York area and do you have a central base in York.

A       Sgt Leach said that he had a full complement of four PCs and 21 PCSOs for the North side of York.  The South of York had 2 PCs and 16 PCSOs who worked in a three shift pattern.   The North York Team was based at Athena House, Clifton Moor and the South York Team was based in Acomb. 

Q       A resident asked if there was a way to contact the team directly other than using 101.

A       There is a central email inbox snayorknorth@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk  which is checked twice daily which is the best way of contacting the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.