PRODUCED QUARTERLY February 2014

City Safe Coordinator

Martin Surl, Gloucestershire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, allocated funding to Gloucester to appoint a City Safe Coordinator for two years, to work with the day and night time businesses. The work fits with the PCC’s priority “Safe days and nights for all.” Richard Burge, (currently the Chief Inspector of Policing in Gloucester) has been appointed to the post of City Safe Coordinator and will take up the appointment on 3rd March. Richard will work with local licensees and traders to combine the Shopwatch and Pubwatch schemes to introduce a “Yellow Card” system to deal with anti social behaviour and ban offenders from entering as many premises as possible.

Safer Gloucester Partnership

Herbert Warehouse

Gloucester Docks

GL1 2EQ

Tel: 01452 396984

Email: cdpartnership@gloucester.gov.uk

www.safergloucester.co.uk

Save the date—

7th June 2014

in Gloucester Park:

Safer Gloucester Presents

Paws on Patrol

and EVEN MORE...

NightSafe

The multi agency NightSafe Group continues to work towards making Gloucester City Centre safer on Friday and Saturday nights. In 2013, Gloucestershire County Council improved the lighting in Eastgate Street which not only improved the feeling of safety in the street but enhanced the images captured on CCTV. In April 2013, NightSafe trialled the full pedestrianisation of Eastgate Street, banning all vehicles except emergency vehicles, from the street from Clarence Street to the GL1 building at Bruton Way between 10.30 pm and 5am on Friday and Saturday nights. The taxi rank, previously situated outside Liquid Nightclub was relocated to the front entrance of GL1. On December 6th, a six month traffic order came into effect to continue the pedestrianisation. There have been a few teething issues, which were to be expected, but these are gradually being sorted. NightSafe will be consulting with people who come into the city centre on Fridays and Saturdays to ask

their views of the experiment. If, after the six month trial, it is deemed to be successful, the traffic order will be made permanent.

Paws on Patrol News

The Paws on Patrol scheme continues to go from strength to strength in Gloucester with over 950 members. At the mid December count there had been over 270 calls to Gloucester City Council and over 400 calls to the Police. These all go towards keeping our vulnerable people safe and stamping out crime from our city!

“Patrollers” have responded eagerly to messages asking for help to spot offenders with regard to damaged trees, abandoned shopping trolleys and vandalised allotments as well as looking out for elderly and vulnerable people in the recent bad weather and flooding.

A big thank you to all our members for the contributions they make towards making Gloucester a safe place to live, work and visit. Safer Gloucester held a Christmas photo competition, inviting Patrollers to send in photos of their pets. There were two categories— 1) a Christmas photo and 2) a general portrait that we can feature on the poster for this summer’s event. We received 43 photos of gorgeous pooches, making it a very difficult decision for the judges (Paws on Patrol event planners). The winning entries are shown below JD (left) and Tilly (right) but we are hoping to feature more entries on the poster and also display all of the beautiful entries in a large poster at the summer event.

Safer Gloucester news February 2014 Page 2

Plans are coming together for “Safer Gloucester Presents Paws on Patrol and Even MORE!!!”, to be held in Gloucester Park on 7th June 2014. Full details will be released later but keep an eye on the Safer Gloucester website for more information. We hope to recruit our 1,000th member this year.

Paws on Patrol mascots, Police dogs Ace and Holly are planning to be there again, showing their skills of finding drugs and catching offenders.

Don’t forget to follow the adventures of Ace and Holly and their friends on Twitter @glospoldogblog - learn of their successes and that of their friend Omar who recently, caught a burglar, enabled 3 criminal damage offenders to be arrested as well as another potential bike thief, and commiserate with them that they had to work on Christmas Day!

Advent Calendar

Many thanks to everyone who took part in the

Advent Calendar competition.

The winner, Linda Fisher from Longlevens,

emailed her entry on the stroke of midnight

on Christmas eve morning.

Congratulations to all our winners.

A Happy New Year from Mascots, Police Dogs, Ace and Holly

Beer Goggles Go-Karting

Safer Gloucester hosted a beer goggles go-karting event in King’s Square on a very cold evening in November, in order to raise awareness of how devastating the effects of driving are whilst impaired through drink or drugs.

With the help of a Gloucestershire based business, Concession Cirkitz International, who brought along their electric go kart, residents were able to experience first hand the effects of driving whilst under the influence of alcohol. Concession Cirkitz International invited everyone to drive around a circuit in their electric go kart and then to repeat the exercise whilst wearing “beer goggles”. The specially designed goggles recreate the visual distortion, loss of perception and lack of control that makes drink driving so dangerous.

Safer Gloucester had imitation alcoholic drinks available, displaying the number of units of alcohol and calories to be found in each drink.

There was also a quiz, testing knowledge of how long the body takes to absorb alcohol and asking how long after a night out, would it be safe to drive again.

Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service demonstrated how they deal with some of the difficult situations they face when they arrive at the scene of an accident. They carefully demonstrated how they remove the roof and doors of a vehicle and cautiously lift out a passenger on a spinal board to avoid causing

Safer Gloucester news Page 3 February 2014

further damage to the injured person. Several spectators commented on the importance of the event and appreciated the fun way that the serious message was portrayed. The only way to be certain that you are not driving under the influence of alcohol is to take a personal zero limit and avoid drinking any alcohol at all if you are driving.

Our thanks go to the sponsors of the event: Butlers Venue Bar, Stagecoach West, Nissan Wessex Garage, Wetherspoon, Eastgate Cycles, Associated Taxis and Luminar Group Ltd —Liquid Gloucester, whose contributions enabled the Beer Goggle Go Karting experience to be taken to Newent Community School and Gloucester Academy at a later date.

Christmas Fun at Kingsholm

Safer Gloucester hosted an afternoon of festive fun for older people in December, featuring songs from the musicals, old thyme music hall songs and traditional Carols sung by Tyger Productions, a Christmas quiz, some crime prevention advice and refreshments, courtesy of Gloucestershire Older Person’s Association, Tesco Stores and Rodda’s clotted cream.

Chair of Safer Gloucester, Cllr Jennie Dallimore negotiates

the course whilst wearing the beer goggles

Safer Gloucester news Page 4 February 2014

Barton Street Police Station

Open Day

Barton Street Local Policing Team

are opening their doors to visitors

on Wednesday 19th February from

10am—2pm. There will be a host of

activities including finger printing,

crime scene investigation, speed

checking, seat belt sled,

observational quiz, colouring

competition and more. Safer

Gloucester will also be there with

alcohol and drug information

including the infamous beer goggle

test. Dog owners can come along

and sign up to Paws on Patrol, the

very successful scheme where

residents “look out” for their

neighbourhoods.

If you have been doing maintenance work on your house or cleaning the windows, make sure you lock the ladders away at the end of the day!

Shed and Garden Security

Following the publicity of Operation Switch, the proactive policing of offenders and various crime prevention methods available to protect your homes, Safer Gloucester is delighted to report that house burglaries have taken a downward turn and, at the middle of January, were 2.8% less than the same period last year (from April—January).

This is excellent news especially as burglaries had been on the rise throughout the summer.

Safer Gloucester will now be turning its attention to shed and garden security.

Very soon we will be enjoying warmer weather again and be keen to get back out into the garden to tidy up after winter.

Always remember to put away your garden tools at the end of the day and lock them securely in your shed or garage as they could be used to break into your house. If you do not have a shed, store the tools inside your house.

A good way to keep thieves out is to use nature’s own defence mechanisms to stop intruders. A barrier of prickly hedge may be all the protection you need to protect your property. More information on natural protection/defensive planting can be found on www.safergloucester.co.uk .

In addition, please ensure that you lock your bicycle away securely each night; put a lock on your bike, put it in your shed or garage and then secure that also. In one month last year, there were 17 bikes stolen from gardens, 7 from sheds and 14 from garages. The alarmed bicycle “D” locks are still available from Bearland Police Station for £10—please lock it—or lose it!!

Positive Tickets

Know a young person who has done

something exceptional? In March, Safer

Gloucester is setting up “Positive tickets” to

reward these good things—watch the

website for further details.