Issue - meetings

INFORMATION NOTE OF THE LICENSING AND COMMUNITY SAFETY MANAGER

The purpose of this Information Note is to provide the committee with an overview of the work undertaken by the Community Safety Team.

Councillor Mick Debenham, as Executive Member for Regulatory presented the Information Note entitled ‘Community Safety Overview’, following which Members asked questions.

Audio recording – 3 hours 2 minutes 39 seconds

Councillor Mick Debenham, as Executive Member for Regulatory presented the Information Note entitled ‘Community Safety Overview’ and advised that:

·             The Community Safety Team were the first point of contact for sharing information with the Police and they represented the Council on the Joint Executive CCTV Partnership.

·             Their duties covered a wide portfolio such as dealing with dog fouling, hate crime, unauthorised encampments and abandoned vehicles.

·             Increased budget and resources had been given to their team which they had used to increase patrols in fly tipping hotspots, serve a record amount of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs), conduct three successful prosecutions, and issue a closure order to a vape shop in Royston.

·             Roll out of the Safety Charter for Women and Girls had taken place in pubs and extra safeguarding training had been provided to taxi drivers.

·             Safety talks had been held in schools and they had worked with children to create videos for social media on the dangers of a variety of issues from drugs to cyber bullying.  

The following Members asked questions:

·             Councillor Claire Winchester

·             Councillor Ralph Muncer

·             Councillor Paul Ward

·             Councillor David Chalmers

·             Councillor Vijaiya Poopalasingham

In response to questions, the Licensing and Community Safety Manager advised that:

·             They had been able to restructure within the team to allow two officers to focus primarily on fly tipping due to the extra funding, with another officer able to cover when necessary.

·             The previous Police Sergeant for the Community Safety Unit in North Herts had been recruited to their team.

·             School visits were key to capture the younger demographic and target prevention.

·             Cross border fly tipping would be resolved through a targeted approach with local authorities in Bedfordshire. 

·             They were not as reliant on public reporting of fly tipping due to the additional resources they had to station Officers in hotspots, however, Members should reassure residents that fly tipping would be addressed if reports were made.

·             When fly tipping was reported but not suspected by an officer after an assessment, a message would be sent to Veolia via the Admin Team for them to clear it. This took longer on private land as they did not have a duty to clear waste there.  

·             Fines that were given to fly tipping offenders in court were often less than the FPNs that would have been charged by the Council, therefore, there was a delicate balance in publicising these prosecutions.

·             Hate crime had not been covered in their school visits as the Police already worked on this, but as one of their partners, they would include them on any future talks on hate crime that they planned to hold with schools.

·             The Safety Charter had initially focused on towns, but this would be rolled out to pubs, restaurants and off licenses in rural communities.

In response to questions, Councillor Mick Debenham advised that:

·             Fly tipping numbers for the previous year had already been exceeded just six months into the current year due to their targeted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 50