I caught up with Inspector Matt Welsted and our PCSO Rebecca Woolley over a cup of coffee this week to learn about the recent changes within our local police force, which came in to effect on May 10th.
Previously we had smaller Neighbourhood Police Units (NPU's) who covered the "softer side of policing", such as community issues, crime investigation and local priorities. Alongside the NPU's there was a Targeted Patrol Team (TPT) which dealt with urgent jobs. They were mainly based out of Macclesfield and Crewe, with a few officers based at Wilmslow, but they worked wherever the demand was. The priority of the TPT was to the police clock and meeting their targets for response times.
Inspector Matt Welsted explained "The TPT were not local officers, their priority was getting to incidents quickly and they had no allegiance to the local community. There was a disconnect between the two units so the TPT has been disbanded and the officers have been distributed amongst the Neighbourhood Police Units which means I now have 11 new officers and an extra Sergeant."
The role of the PCSO's has not changed, they remain the focal point of the community but are now supported by a team of officers. So as a result of the reorganisation, whilst all of Inspector Welsted's officers are available to police Alderley Edge as required, there is now a dedicated team for the village which is led by our new Sergeant Steve Sheppard, five police officers (Kate Bennett, Simon Roberts, Nina Foran, Paula Cox and Phil Tuck) and our PCSO Rebecca Woolley.
There are now 3 Neighbourhood Police Teams covering the Wilmslow and Alderley Edge area. In addition to the Alderley Edge team there is one team covering Wilmslow South, the town centre area, and another covering Wilmslow North, which includes Handforth and Dean Row.
Inspector Welsted said " This new structure switches the officers allegiance from the clock to the local community. The same officers are working in the same area all the time, tailoring their needs to the community with the only caveat being if a urgent job arises which requires them to assist in a different area."
"Since the changes were introduced two weeks ago we have only needed to draft in help from other areas twice, and on both occasions this has been because of a high-risk missing person. There has been a big improvement in regard to targets, we have reached over 90% of our targets and more importantly local officers are responding to the urgent jobs. We are building up an allegiance amongst our officers to small pockets of local communities because all of their working day is spent tackling local issues."
Inspector Welsted also reported that crime figures in the area are continuing to decrease, with an average of 6 crimes a day being recorded across the whole of the Wilmslow Neighbourhood Policing Unit (NPU). During April, 16 violent crimes were recorded across the entire NPU, which is extremely low given the area has a population of 40,000 and violent crimes are not all assaults, for example they can include incidents of swearing, or someone throwing a can out of a car window which hits another vehicle.
"Our problem with crime is not violence, it is theft. So far this month we have had only 9 burglaries of dwellings and under 20 other burglaries. Very few of these are burglaries of businesses, most involve the theft of bikes and lawn mowers from garden sheds, for which there is almost always no witnesses."
"The biggest numerical problem in this area is vehicle crime because there are lots of huge car parks and therefore lots of opportunities. Hotels and gyms are our main issues. Saying that there are still under 40 vehicle crimes per month and a significant portion of these involve unlocked vehicles or valuables being left on view."
"There will always be a market for small electrical goods, such as sat navs, so the best approach to reducing crime is to educate people by providing basic crime prevention advice" added Inspector Welsted.
