The prospect of a reduced ‘beat’ for police at Lake Parish Council meetings was criticised last week.
Despite a Hampshire Constabulary officer attending Lake Parish Council’s meeting last night, councillors were told the visit would now move to every 3 months.
The move was branded as disappointing by 1 councillor who said a police representative should be at their meetings every month to provide an update.
Councillor John Marshall said:
“You are our representative, we do want you to come each month and let us know what is going on.
“We seldom see you. It is disappointing.”
The officer who attended last night’s meeting, and had done for the last 17 years, told members she had attended on her day off, having left a personal commitment to be there. She said her team could not be there every month but agreed to ask her bosses to provide a more detailed written report to the parish council as opposed to statistics, but it would take more time to do.
The parish clerk said he had been in contact with the Superintendent, who had intervened to change the days officers were on duty so they could attend the meetings.
Councillor Paul Brading, chairman, said he would take up the matter with Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones, who he was meeting with the other Bay councils in November to discuss common problems. He agreed a representative should attend more frequently but compared to Sandown and Shanklin’s town councils — who have had no attendance recently — what Lake was receiving was over and above.
Councillor Brading also highlighted the ‘abysmal’ reporting system where you could be led down a blind alley online if you were not careful or left waiting on the phone to 101. He also said there had been examples where the police had been called but had not come and he didn’t know whether that was a numbers issue but the system was broken.
Councillor Brading said:
“You cannot be everywhere, we need Ms Jones to be aware we need something done about it.”
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The PCSO said the issue was people could not be bothered to report the incidents, they just put it on Facebook, and if it was not reported there was nothing she could do.
There are far too few police for this Island… over 140,000 people… how many police, actually on the Island? Never see police walking around, unless in town when they pop out for lunch.. but when they do this, act as though not on duty. Especially in Ryde, they walk down the pedestrianised part, cars stream past them, drivers are not stopped or questioned as to why they are driving through the pedestrianised zone Sign says NO VEHICULAR TRAFFIC ALLOWED except one hour for disabled and all day for deliveries up til 6pm. After 6 pm NO VEHICLES ALLOWED AT ALL, yet still cars/bikes zoom up through, often for the chippy, then park out front of chippy on the double yellows and no loading area. Police do not care it seems.
They have bigger fish to fry rather than deal with your minor irritations. I rather they get to grips with the rising drug problem on the Island and by virtue of the Echo’s reporting they have had some success, its about getting the priorities right!
Why do you need an officer to attend just to tell you what you already know? As in – no beats, no arrests, no attendances, no interest and no visibility??? There is no police force now – unless of course you say some hurty-wurty words on chavvy social media.
The PCSO who attends is only going to tell the parish council what they can find on line if they bothered to look it up, I spent some time as a parish councillor until I realised what a complete waste of my time it was, people used to complain that they saw someone parked on yellow lines, I am sure mrs A cat has been pooing in next doors garden,parish councillors are at the bottom of the political food chain for a reason, they cannot be given any power because they would abuse it and all they do is take money out of the central pot. One unitary authority for the wholeisland then the police could pass out all the info in one go.
Liz Truss is an exemplar of Parish Councillor material that has been given too much power.
The PCSO who used to come into Bembridge Parish Council office was a total waste of space.
Never patrolling in the evening or night. Only the day time when less incidents occur and the children at Steyne Park threw water bombs at him
His dull predictable line was always’ the kids are bored they have nothing to do’
Yet they have a beach , countryside a park, free gym equipment, skate ramp ,basketball court, cricket, football, youth club etc
So just a cop out saying such as he was to weak to address the issues of drugs vandalism and anti social behaviour
The Parish Council are now clueless and staff have left unhappy with many of the current Councillors Now several ex Councillors resigned & 3 Clerks recently gone
There’s probably over 30 town and parish councils on the Island and, I assume, they all expect a police office to attend their meetings once a month (not my area, really, so correct me if I’m wrong)? At, probably, an hour each that’s a substantial amount of time which surely could be used more beneficially.
Personally, I’d rather those hours were spent by officers patrolling town centres etc on foot rather than sitting in parish council meetings.
As I said, I may be wrong and not every parish council would have a police officer reporting to them (reporting what, exactly?).
they’ll be mob handed at a pride event though!
The police rarely do anything anyway they just say there is not enough evidence there was a time you reported a crime and it was the polices job to find the evidence.If the police do catch a criminal then the courts seem to let them off no wonder people don’t bother going to the police.I don’t blame the individual officers it is the system and the fact there are not enough officers.That is down to government funding again.