What issues concerned you most in your area
You were worried about antisocial behaviour and vehicles causing a nuisance in Hillsborough Park in the evenings.
This PACT priority was retained at every PACT meeting since then, upto and including the most recent on 27th January 2011.
At the meeting held on 26th August 2010 it was ammended to include Burnell Road and Park View Road, and the times were extended to between 5pm and 11pm.
At the PACT meeting on 23rd September this priority was retained again, but extended further to cover Hawksley Avenue as well.
At the PACT meeting on 21st October this priority was retained again, but extended to cover Middlewood Road, especially by the shops around KFC.
Between 6pm and 11pm.
Our first response to this issue will be to simply increase the amount of patrol time spent by officers and community officers in the park and surrounding streets. A higher visibilty presence will deter trouble makers, and also mean we can better deal with those who do cause problems.
UPDATE for APRIL
The PACT priority has been flagged up to the Neighbourhood Patrol Groups (NPGs), the officers who deal with immediate incidents called to the police, on duty 24 hours a day. This means that, as well as the SNT staff, the NPG officers will also pay attention to the area whenever they get some patrol time free in between incidents.
UPDATE for JUNE
In June community officers (PCSOs) spent 257 hours of active patrol time in the Hillsborough area, much of which was spent in and around the park. This is in addition to the police officers time. This has contributed to the reduction of reported incidents in the area.
UPDATE for JULY
The SNT has also been able to enlist the help of specialist units from the police Operational Support Service, which includes officers on horseback and Taskforce officers. Mounted officers are obviously perfect for use in parkland, as they can cover ground quickly and can see over the whole park from their position. The Taskforce officers are specially trained teams working out of vans, meaning that they can cover the whole area between them.
These units will be coming through the park regularly throughout the summer, in order to keep an eye out for the safety and peace of mind of all the park's users.
UPDATE for AUGUST
Figures for the month of July show that we only had one reported incident of antisocial behaviour within the park, and no crimes reported to the police. This has dropped from four incidents and two crimes in June. This shows that the highly visible patrols in the area are working, dicouraging people from behaving badly or committing crime.
UPDATE for September
We're continuing to patrol in the park, but we're now extending the patrols to cover more of the roads adjoining the park. We're aware that the pedestrian entrances to the park off some of the roads sometimes serve as a place to gather for some youths, and this can cause a nuisance and noise for local residents. We're going into those areas to direct the groups off the street and into the park, as a much more appropriate place to gather together.
UPDATE for October
We are continuing to patrol in the areas mentioned and respond to incidents reported to us. We now have a van of officers dedicated to antisocial behaviour working every night of the week, aimed at tackling issues like this. Last weekend a group of youths were reported in KFC. Officers removed them from the premises and searched them all for fireworks or knives. None were in possession of either.
UPDATE for April
Following further consultation with residents in the area it was decided that the recent introduction of gates on the carpark entrance in Hillsborough park had been effective in stopping nuisance motor vehicles frequenting the location. As such we are discontinuing this PACT priority, and rolling other aspects of it into a new priority that takes account of this.
If you have any information in relation to this, or any other priority, in the area, please call the SNT direct on 0114 296 4912 and leave a message, or dial 101 for police callhandlers at any time.