Keeping Colchester safe
A community safety event, designed in part to raise awareness about knife crime, will take place in Colchester in early December.
The Safer Colchester Partnership event will highlight the work being undertaken by police, partner agencies and voluntary organisations to prevent knife crime and educate everyone about its dangers.
The meeting, which members of the public and the press are welcome to attend, will take place on Thursday December 5, 2013, in the Moot Hall, Colchester Town Hall, from 10am to 1pm. Guest speakers include Caroline Shearer and Ann Oakes-Odger, mothers of sons who have died from stabbing wounds in Colchester, and there will be a debate about knife crime.
Nick Alston, Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex, who will be attending the event, said: “Concerns about knife crime were raised by members of the public at our meeting in Colchester in September. I believe it is important that local communities make their voices heard, that all of us involved in community safety listen, and that we work together to find solutions.”
CouncillorTim Young, Colchester Borough Council Portfolio Holder for Planning, Community Safety and Culture, said: “The Safer Colchester Partnership has been incredibly busy this year, with projects that make a real difference to people’s lives in the Borough.
“We can never be complacent about community safety, as the two mums speaking in the debate know, but we can all work together to try to make our Borough a better place to live.”
Visitors to the event will also be able to find out about work that the partnership has done over the last year at an exhibition by members of the partnership.
Over the past year, the partnership has worked to make a difference to people’s lives in many different sections of the community. Projects have included:
• Crucial Crew, a safety event for children in the last year of primary school;
• A domestic abuse campaign aimed at teenagers in school;
• Keep Safe, a scheme to provide a safe place to ask for help for vulnerable adults who get into difficulties in the town centre;
• Secure planting project, aimed at showing people how to burglar-proof their homes through planting prickly shrubs near windows;
• Community Days of Action, which target selected parts of the Borough, to tackle issues raised by residents such as litter, parking, anti-social behaviour and speeding. This year New Town and St Andrew’s have been targeted;
• Safer Colchester Project including daily Essex Police anti social behaviour and street drinkers’ patrols, Essex Probation Trust’s Community Payback teams litter-picking, and Community Speedwatch.
Safer Colchester Partnership is chaired by Colchester Borough Council and brings together many different organisations including Essex Police, Essex Probation Trust, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, Open Road, Colchester Borough Homes, and Women’s Refuge.
