Police update on their efforts to reduce crime and anti social behaviour in Southport

Good afternoon from the North Sefton Neighbourhood Team at Southport Police Station, on day 6 of ‘NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICING WEEK’.

An important point to make is the effect that the Covid restrictions have had on Neighbourhood Policing’s level of community engagement over the last two years. Engagement with local residents through patrols, visits to worship groups, community groups, sheltered accommodation, schools etc has had to cease over the time of Covid restrictions. Whilst we ourselves have continued to work right through the pandemic, we had no choice but to step back from many of these types of engagement due to public health concerns. The nature of the work we do means that sometimes we can not pick and choose which people we have to have contact with through policing. Others may be particularly vulnerable and could have contracted the virus if we had inadvertently taken it into a group of people. Now that restrictions are lifting, and hopefully the risk is reducing, we hope to start to build those contacts back up again. So if we used to make more visits to you and your groups previously, we hope to get back to the same level of community engagement again soon.

Yesterday we had officers out on foot patrol in Dukes ward (Southport Town Centre), where they were visiting local businesses affected by shop theft. A 23 year old man was arrested for possession of cannabis on Lord Street and taken to custody in the Land Rover. 

PCSO’s conducted another fraud awareness event at Morrisons on Lord Street and visited the Crisis Café at Alchemy Southport on Mornington Road, where they met with the volunteers, who introduced them to a few of their regular visitors. It was a lovely atmosphere and certainly a place that people have come to depend on for company and conversation over the difficult period of the last two years. These will be important partners for us to work with in the future where come across people struggling with their mental health.

We also had officers out on solo foot patrol in Kew where they conducted a victim support visit and responded to reports of anti-social behaviour and drug dealing.

PCSO Edwardson was on foot patrol in Churchtown, Marshside and Crossens, where she made another follow up visit to a victim of crime, responded to reports of anti-social behaviour and criminal damage and continued visits to local businesses. As a result, more information was able to be entered into the intelligence system.

Foot patrol in Birkdale ward, included responding to a neighbour dispute as well as patrol of Birkdale village and the surrounding area.

In Formby, foot patrol included a victim support visit to a victim of burglary and a letter-drop appeal for witnesses/CCTV and home security advice for other local residents.

Following complaints about speeding traffic from residents of Park Avenue and Fylde Road we conducted Roads Policing ‘Spotlight’ operations on those roads. Last week we recorded one vehicle travelling 18 mph above the 20mph limit on Park Avenue and arrested one man for driving while disqualified. This week no excessive speeds were recorded, and this resulted in 15 drivers being stopped and given words of advice, rather than receiving any fines. Local Councillors will be informed of these recent checks.

On the late shift Officers conducted mobile patrols to anti-social behaviour hot spots and areas where issues are currently being reported to us across Southport, Churchtown and Kew, including the Folkestone Road area where trolleys from the supermarket have been used to block the road. No issues were found there last night. 

Elsewhere, knife crime presentations continued at Formby High School, investigations continued into arrests made earlier in the week and Operation: Luminosity continued, which is an ongoing operation targeting the illegal use of electric scooters. Please remember, E-Scooters are currently illegal for use on roads and pavements in the UK, unless part of an organised hire scheme, which has in place measures to reduce risk. They can and will be seized. Full details of the law applying to E scooters can be found on the https://crowd.in/ncJ6ig website. 

That was Friday. Heading into the weekend, we have a bike registration event planned outside the Co-Op on Fylde Road in Marshside on Sunday from 2:00PM - 4:00pm See a separate post for more details.