Our Neighbourhood Policing Team has had a busy few weeks, in particular we have very much enjoyed attended and engaging with the communities at a range of events including the Beeston Festival, Holbeck, Belle Isle and Hunslet galas and other community events.
This gives us an excellent opportunity to speak to the communities face to face and listen to any concerns or issues that you may be having as well as interacting with all ages and building up their trust and confidence in the police.
Over the past few weeks we have increased patrols and visibility in the Lowfields Road area due to concerns from residents about the number of vehicles that were attending this location each weekend. For the past four weekends we have utilised the powers of a dispersal order to prevent these vehicles attending and committing anti-social driving and other acts at this location.
This has proved very successful and we have had some really positive feedback from residents. We are continuing to work with partners to develop a longer term strategy to tackle this issue that has been affecting the quality of life for residents and businesses in the area.
The summer months can bring an increase in anti-social behaviour reports to police and other services. One of the issues that we are continuing to tackle across South Leeds is the general anti-social use of motor vehicles and motor bikes.
Our off road bike team and operational support colleagues have done a lot of excellent work in relation to this and have seized a number of bikes across the area for driving offences, anti-social riding offences as well as recovering stolen vehicles.
We very much rely on community intelligence to tackle this issue and would encourage anyone with any information on this issue to report this to police or Crimestoppers.
Following on from this, when I attend numerous community meetings when of the questions that is often raised is what is the most effective way to contact the police.
West Yorkshire Police are aware of some of the frustrations that have been raised in relation to the 101 non-emergency phone line, however I would like to reassure residents that this has recently had a significant investment in staffing and there is now a much improved system in place.
You may not be aware that we also have an online reporting system which is an excellent method of contacting the police via computer, tablet or smart phone. Below are a number of different ways that you can get in touch with police and other relevant services:
- Phone 999 – in an emergency to report incidents ongoing
- Phone 101 – to report non-emergency incidents, report crime or intelligence.
- 101 live chat – can be assessed from a computer, tablet or smart phone. This can be assessed at www.westyorkshire.police.uk/101LiveChat
- If you would like to report a crime online you can visit www.westyorkshire.police.uk/report-it
- Leeds City Council – Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team – (0113) 222 4402 or email LASBT@leeds.gov.uk
- Crimestoppers – 0800 555 111 or you can report online by going to www.crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/give-information-online/ both the number and the online reporting enable you to remain anonymous.
For residents who would like to receive regular updates about policing in their local area we now have a new messenger system ‘West Yorkshire Community Alert’. This is a free system and residents can choose to receive news and appeals, local crime information and crime prevention advice via e-mail, text or voice messages.
It only takes seconds for you to sign up to this system and I would really encourage residents to do this. More details can be found at www.wypcommunityalert.co.uk
This post was written by Inspector Lucy Leadbeater
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