Police and Crime Commissioner visits Shirebrook

On Saturday, 17 July, newly-elected Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Angelique Foster visited Shirebrook. The purpose of the visit was to meet with a representative from the police station and a representative from the Town Council. The PCC did not arrive empty-handed: she brought information about her first grant application launch, which can boost the building of the CCTV network in our town.

WHO IS PCC?
There is a lot of misconception about the role of PCC. The main job of the PCCs is to be the voice of the people and hold the police to account. PCC has a limited role in actual policing but can influence how and what priorities are established by local police forces.

The previous PCC for our region didn’t end well- the crime rate exploded in the last months of his work. It looks like he was more focused on fighting in an election than fighting crime. Voters punished that severely. Angelique Foster underlined that she wants to do things differently, but it will take some time to straighten things out. Currently, she is in the final stages of preparing her strategy, which will be published in the coming weeks. What is more important is that she focused on visiting most crime-infested areas in the first days of her work. On top of that, she is preparing procedures for grant applications for community-sensitive work focused on antisocial behaviour and crime reduction.

CORONA IN THE WAY
I never thought that Covid would stand in the way of this meeting. Still, right before PCC came to Shirebrook, a police officer nominated to meet with PCC was pinged by the NHS app. So even that PCC decided to sacrifice her day off, she couldn’t speak with any police officer from Shirebrook Police station. Luckily- I had a day off, so I took her for a trip around town and went through all policing issues in Shirebrook. We spoke about recent attacks, antisocial behaviour on Market Square, CCTV, deportations of foreign criminals and offenders, a new strategy on policing in Derbyshire, and her first grant preparations.

CCTV
It’s funny- one of the reasons why PCC came to our town was to talk about her support for the CCTV project, but since the Labour Party decided to make it a secret, I couldn’t speak openly about progress. Silly, right? Anyway- she confirmed that in the short future, she will open the application procedure for grants. Since my constant nagging of her and overall crime in our town, Angelique Foster promised that Shirebrook will receive paperwork to fill as soon as the funding is open for application.

Good news for our debt-burdened town!

PCC VISIT IS… A BAD SIGN
I was lobbying Angelique Foster to visit Shirebrook since the moment of the official announcement of her win in the election. We exchanged countless messages and emails, so she was in the loop. I take care to update her about any new development. Still, I always wanted to convince her to visit our town. I asked her to come to the Shirebrook Council meeting even before STC decided to ask her about it in a letter.

There are around 240 parish councils in Derbyshire on top of dozens of police stations that PCC needs to visit. If PCC decides to see them all and do one per week, it will take about six years out of… four years of her term of office. In other words- she can not accept invitations from all councils even though she travels around the county constantly.

That’s why she decided to visit only vital areas- like Shirebrook. Sadly this is not a vote of confidence for our town- quite the opposite. PCC visits mainly those areas where crime is out of control. So even if I’m happy to write about her visit, I have to underline: her visit is a sign that things in Shirebrook are in bad shape. She knows about it and came to see what she can do to help. I will be way happier if we have such a low crime rate that Angelique Foster refuse to meet.

BOLSOVER DISTRICT CCTV PARTNERSHIP
The last thing I mentioned to PCC was my idea of a partnership between towns with CCTV infrastructure to build a joint control room. I have discussed this project with several councillors from other towns. I am pleased to report that the idea has been received with enthusiasm. There was even a brief discussion about cost participation and placement of the control room (way premature in my view). But, again, I’m glad to report that PCC found this idea interesting as well.

We agreed that this idea will be revisited when Shirebrook, South Normanton, and Clowne launch their projects. I think we need at least 5 parishes to make this idea financially viable, but we will discuss this in the future.

MISSION FROM PCC
Since PCC doesn’t have time to visit each parish meeting, she asked me to inform STC councillors (and residents) about this meeting, grant opportunity, and new strategy when it will become available. As soon as I receive relevant documents- I will pass them to our Town Clerk and inform my readers about it on S247 pages.

Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com