NPT Part 2."General Questions for the Neighbourhood Police Team"

[memento mori]

Thanks for the opportunity to ask some questions.

As a Westbury resident, my main concerns are:

1. Drink Driving - There have been a large number of crashes in recent months due to drunk drivers including a number of fatalities.

2. Speeding -  There are a large number of drivers who speed in and around Westbury and this is a big contributing factor to car crashes. On the main 'A' roads around Westbury there always seems to be accidents.

Please can the neighbourhood police team advise what is being done to address these issues?

[Town NPT]

Yep, no problem:

1) Drink Driving- I would suggest that "large numbers of crashes" resulting from drink drivers possibly gives the wrong impression, any such incident rightly causes concern, but I am unaware of any more than about 4 or 5 such incident during this year. We, as a service, continue to check vehicles at all times of the day & night &, if we suspect that the driver has been drinking, will carry out the road side breath procedure. In addition to this we also routinely breath test all drivers in any collision that we are called to deal with. My team and I have a good working relationship with most of the landlords in the area through Pub Watch, they are more than happy to (a) Intervene to stop anyone they think might be intending to drive after large amounts of alcohol & (b) Inform us that vehciles contain such folk & where they are going. We however, still rely heavily on members of public to ring us if they believe that someone might be about to drive while intoxicated, they might be saving someones life!! For your information we presently have 21 people serving driving bans for drink driving.

2) Speeding - I couldn't agree more with your comments, we have acknowledged that this is a concern & have recently done some work on the subject, last month we had a traffic survey completed on West End, for three days the traffic was automatically monitored & logged about 30000 vehicles coming through Westbury from both directions during this time & they can say that the average speed of these was about 25 mph. I will continue to monitor this however & will take the "speed trap" out for an afternoon to remind folk travelling down the A350 about regulating their speed.

Hope this addresses some of your concerns, if you have any more questions, feel free to post or to email me directly,

Rgds
Nick

[Clevercat]

When to intervene is something i always feel is difficult. I had 999 tapped into my phone the other evening as I watched a domestic involving a child.  Parents both on one and her caught in the middle. Felt awful that I was not brave enough to go and intervene but then I could and probably would have antagonised the situation.

Obviously I know that the answer to this is probably just going to be ''if in doubt''etc but I genuinely felt torn.  Do you interfere or do you let these people get on with it?

[RTT]

Do you interfere or do you let these people get on with it?

Didn't your parents ever have a shouting match and didn't you watch and learn from it? Unless the child is physically in danger I would walk away and let them all get on with it.



 

[Clevercat]

Didn't your parents ever have a shouting match and didn't you watch and learn from it? Unless the child is physically in danger I would walk away and let them all get on with it.

RTT

It was more than that of course, I would not interfere in just your run of the mill arguement. This was more serious.

And as for your question, yes, all the time.  It made me grow up to be very cynical about relationships and what relationships are actually based on.

[Town NPT]

I totally empathise with your position, there are a million questions going through your mind when you are considering ringing 999; I would suggest that alerting us is always going to be appropriate in circumstances where you believe the parents are going beyond what you might consider "reasonable", we are in an ideal position to calm the situation down & establish that there is nothing untoward going on. I would much rather we get called out to 100 false alarms than risk not being notified in the one instance where we could have intervened & avoided a disaster. I would also expand this to include instances of neglect; typically you might see someone in charge of a small child (under about 7 years..) who is extremely intoxicated, it is worth ringing us to ensure that something untoward doesn't occur.

Hope this helps,
Nick

[Clevercat]

It does help thankyou. I guess it is the fear of antagonising them, and also being considered to be a nosey neighbour, plus the fear that you may arrive and feel your trip was a waste of time.  But you have reassured me so thanks.

[RTT]

typically you might see someone in charge of a small child (under about 7 years..) who is extremely intoxicated,

I had to read that twice. An intoxicated -7 yo? 

[myangel]

. I would also expand this to include instances of neglect; typically you might see someone in charge of a small child (under about 7 years..) who is extremely intoxicated, it is worth ringing us to ensure that something untoward doesn't occur.

Hope this helps,
Nick

a few years ago all you would have had to do is place yourself in the market place  on a sunday and watch them all fall out of the ludlow, white lion  n charlies..alll wrecked and just swap pubs....all with children, toddlers and babies in tow    a couple i used to know used to be out for 12 diner timetime and we would hear them rolling back at gone midnite ( drunk) and with 2 very tired kiddies...crying loudly and they were usually arguing just to add to it as well... that instant was EVERY fri sat and sun........poor kids what a life..dragged from pub to pub  week end after weekeknd
something i never patisipated in

[mr sandford]

Having been a life long resident in Westbury I recently had my first dealings with the local NPT.  I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank P.C HOLT and his team for all their efforts and hardwork.

I found the NPT to be an efficient, hardworking and dedicated team who always had time to speak and always found time for my questions no matter how trivial.  I think they do a stirling job with the limited amount of funding received from they Gov and small amount of support received from the community.

WELL DONE NICK AND TEAM

[RTT]

I think they do a stirling job with the limited amount of funding received from they Gov and small amount of support received from the community.

 Many people have negative views of the police simply because of the negative response they receive from them. It would be interesting to hear what your contact was about.

[mr sandford]

A nasty distraction burglary at my Nan's property, Having spoken to the team on several occasions I received nothing but friendly positive service.

I am sure that this is not always the case when they are explaining the same thing to the same old faces time and time again, and they most certainly sometimes feel like the only adult in town 

[RTT]

A nasty distraction burglary at my Nan's property,

Terrible. That's one of the most disgusting modern crimes there is. Did they get the *******s?

[mr sandford]

unfortunately no, but not through lack of trying.

[Town NPT]

FYI: We have recently put a prolific distraction burglar back in Gaol on remand, pending a full investigation of his activities over the last few months, we believe that he is responsible for at least one of the recent burglaries, if not more, and there is evidence which would indicate that he was planning to attack several other such premises in the near future. My team is in the process of attending the OAP residential homes in Westbury & giving advice on how to deal with strangers, if you care for someone who you believe might benefit from such advice, please feel free to email us directly with their (and your) details & we will happily attend,

Rgds
Nick