Meeting with Abington residents to discuss community safety

On Thursday 22 May, I held a community safety meeting for the residents of Abington and Phippsville with Danielle Stone, Northamptonshire Police Fire and Crime Commissioner.

Joined by Cllrs Bob Purser and Zoe Smith and members of the Neighbourhood Police Team, we heard from residents about the issues affecting the area as a whole and also particular hot spots for certain kinds of activity, like drug-dealing, harassment and fly-tipping. 

Several major themes were raised including vehicle theft, the high concentration of unsupervised HMOs, speeding in residential areas, e-scooters and scrambler bikes riding at high speeds and parking on footpaths, and retail crime on the Wellingborough Road and Abington Grove.

Danielle and I outlined the work the Commissioner’s Office and Government are doing to tackle these issues including the recruitment of 142 new community-based police officers over the next year, and a named police officer for every neighbourhood, giving police greater powers to tackle anti-social behaviour including powers to seize vehicles, and cracking down on fly-tipping.  

We've been holding community safety meetings in different areas around town and it's been very good to identify problems, alongside officers from our local force, on the hyper local level. I hope that this is a way that we can ensure that persistent issues are dealt with. 

I want to thank everyone who attended the meeting and look forward to working with local officers, residents and our Commissioner to deliver on the actions we agreed at the meeting.

I echo the advice of police officers in the meeting to always report crime when they see it, including on Northamptonshire Talking at https://www.northamptonshiretalking.co.uk/, and to always ring 999 if you see a crime in progress.