Policing matters: YourNorthumbria
Sgt Ian Forster, Amble Neigbourhood Police
Welcome to my latest update from Amble Neighbourhood Police. Since the last edition of The Ambler, Northumbria Police has announced changes to the civilian staffing levels of reception desks at Police stations throughout the force area. This has changed the opening hours when members of the public can walk into a police station and report something.
Most police stations have been affected by this and 3 are no longer open to members of the public, one of which is Amble. What this means is that since 17th July there is no longer a civilian member of staff available to speak to members of the public at the Police station at Fourways, Amble. The least busy police stations such as Amble means that it cost nearly £40 of tax payers money to serve each member of the public who attended and the changes will save £1.4 million each year.
The Police Station at Fourways remains as it is and there is no reduction in the number of Police Officers and Community Support Officers as a result of these changes. The only difference is that you can no longer walk into the Police station to report something.
How to report matters to the police
The vast majority of crime reports are made via 999 in emergency situations, for minor incidents its 101 and via the website.
More and more people are choosing to use the telephone or online services, so the number of people calling at police stations has fallen with some stations seeing only a handful of visitors in a day. The force has, and is continuing, to invest in its customer services strategy which is designed to facilitate contact with the force via online and digital means.
New ways to contact Northumbria Police, will include online web chats, YourNorthumbria, a new alert system for texts and emails, improved web capability so that residents can report 101 information directly into the call centre, and later on the ability to report through social media for non-emergency crimes.
Police Officers also have the ability to record crimes on their mobile devices and can be approached at any time. Further investment will also be put into the 101 contact centres to make significant improvements to the current service.
As mentioned above, YourNorthumbria is a great new system where you can be kept updated about local crimes and matters of public interest. You will only receive messages through your chosen communication channel of voice, email or text message. The amount of messages you receive will be based on your chosen location/s and the amount of activity happening in each of those locations. By having the ability to select your personal preferences on the ‘My Interests’ page means that you can reduce the amount of messages you receive to only those that you wish to be notified about. Please go onto the YourNorthumbria website and press join to be kept updated.
It was my very great pleasure on 14th July to host the Amble and Warkworth Young Citizen Awards. This was started and has been run by Community Support Officer Darin Fawcett in association with Amble Development Trust for several years and is an acknowledgement of where young children have excelled in aspects of their life.
Amble First School nominated Harrison Gough, Warkworh Primary School nominated Joe Denny and Amble Links First School nominated Evie Bell. It was truly humbling to read what these young people had achieved. They all got an award and presents, with Joe being the overall winner who also got a bike.
Thanks to all the sponsors for donating the prizes and thank you for your time.
Ian Forster, Amble Neighbourhood Police Sergeant
