This week we were pleased to be joined by Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Barnaby Prince who gave a talk, and answered our many questions, on Neighbourhood Policing.
The Neighbourhood Policing team are the people who do the face to face policing, attending events, patrolling the streets, attending community surgeries etc. Our local team consists of three PCSO’s and a community support officer but would be 8 strong if it was fully staffed.
The teams current priorities are the frequent and persistent vandalism of beach huts on the prom adjacent to Sutton on Sea and thefts from rural, commercial buildings e.g. quad bikes being stolen from farms. We were interested to hear that, as well as traditional air support, the team can call upon three drones with HD and thermal cameras.
Members of our club voiced the typical concerns over the state of the local police force and it was very clear that resources are stretched far too thinly. In terms of reporting crime the average wait for a 101 call to be answered in Lincolnshire is 40 minutes. Surprisingly this is the best response time in the country! Barnaby recommends reporting crime via www.lincs.police.uk/reporting-advice/ instead whenever possible to save time and explained that while individual reports of crime sometimes appear to be dismissed they are often used to build up a bigger picture that leads to action being taken.