NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH      

Sector Co-ordinators 

(please report all incidents & suspicious activity immediately to any of the co-ordinators)

·                Farms + Quarter bounded by Church Rd & Station Road

Þ             Peter Tucker, Ken Wade,

·                Quarter bounded by Northbrook Road & Station Road

Þ             Mike Beale

·                Quarter bounded by Northbrook Road & Main Road

Þ             Jerome Hayes, Brian Ferbert

Þ             Quarter bounded by Church Road & Main Road

Þ             Neil Hemmings, John Papworth

Þ             Farouk Qadir

·                Loxley Batch

Þ             Ron Jones

OTHER USEFUL TELEPHONE NUMBERS

· Emergency 999

· Non emergency 101

· Non urgent enquiries & messages for our Community Beat Officer, PC 1433 Jonathan (Jon) Bartlett 01823-363366, fax 01823 363367, e-mail Jonathan.Bartlett@avonandsomerset.police.uk and our Community Support Officer Lora Bray 07825 125099, email lora.bray@avonandsomerset.police.uk 

· Crimestoppers 0800-555111 (if you want to report anonymously)

· Crime prevention advice 01823-363210

Hello all

We are currently looking to target a few of the problems that appear to be ongoing across the beat in most of the villages and are looking for some help with this from the local people, groups and parish councils.

Three of the main problems that are causing most concern at the moment are parking, speeding and poaching.

We have received numerous complaints regarding inconsiderate or illegal parking in many of the villages out of the 19 that we cover, whether they are parked on pavements, blocking kerbs or inconsiderate parking around school times. We know that on some occasions there have been parking issues on private or unadopted roads where we are unable to legally enforce it but in most cases words of advice will suffice and the problem ends.

We plan to deal with this in different ways depending on the location and circumstances but hopefully by targeting the worst areas the parking situation in your villages will improve therefore making them safer places to live.

Speeding has become a problem with people using many of the smaller narrower roads as a cut through, exceeding the speed limits, often on roads that they are unfamiliar with. We are looking to obtain details of the roads in your villages that you believe are the worst for speeding and times or dates when it is at its worst .

To target this problem we hope to get out with our speed monitoring equipment and paint a picture of how severe the problem is, and when we have gathered enough evidence, look at the most severe hotspots and look to put in place long term solutions to combat this.

With regards to the poaching, this is an ongoing rural issue that has affected many of the villages in some way and is something that as a team we would again like to come down hard on. In some circumstances, poachers that have not gained the permission of the landowner have accessed land and left gates open, allowing livestock onto roads therefore causing serious concern to road users and local people.

We understand that in most cases the poaching occurs late at night to early morning but details of vehicles believed involved in this or local places that you know are used for poaching would be greatly appreciated.

What I would like is any information or evidence to help me put these operations together so we can proactively deal with the issues and will work in partnership with other agencies such as housing, safety camera partnership and our road police unit in a bid to reduce the ongoing issues.

We would really appreciate your involvement and support in this and hope that together we can reduce the problems that affect all of us.

Thank you

PCSO Rachel Aston 7709

Latest 'WatchOut'
G080 31012012

This is a general warning message to all members relating to bogus callers and cold calling.

There have been a number of reports of an increase in cold callers or bogus callers.

Most of these seem to be taking the form of contact by phone or by Email and can cover a range of topics. Some reports have been made of calls from companies alleging there is a problem with your home computer, or that someone in your household has an outstanding compensation claim against them, or that there is a need to check bank details, or that you have not applied for grants or compensation yourself. The list is endless.

There are a few simple rules to help avoid falling victim to such cons:
* If the offer sounds too good to be true then it probably is,
* NEVER give out personal information over the phone. In other words - just say no thank you and terminate the call.
* If its an Email coming through to you with an address that you do not recognise then do not open it but delete it straight away - in case it contains a virus.
* As always, don't have dealings with cold callers whether they are selling items or services, or whether they want to do work at the property (gutter cleaning etc). If you are looking for work to be done then contact companies yourself through local phone books and get more than one written quotation - personal recommendation from valued friends or family members can also be an advantage.

Whilst we do not wish to instil fear, we do think that taking the usual simple precautions will assist in preventing people becoming victims of crime or scams. A limited number of information leaflets on this type of matter are available from the Neighbourhood Watch Office at Bridgwater 01823-363348.

If you have information about any crime, phone the police on 101 or you can call anonymously to the independent charity CRIMESTOPPERS 0800 555 111. For general information about Neighbourhood Watch nationally see the www.ourwatch.org.uk website.